My most common writing error in high school was accidentally going in tangents in my essay that don’t fully connect to the main point of the paper. Coming into college this semester, that was something I really wanted to work on. Working on the first paper with my writing lab coach I was able to use good evidence that supported my claim a prevent myself from going off-topic. Within each body paragraph, though, I wasn’t concluding the paragraph by reconnecting it to the topic sentence. I succeeded in this in my second paper and further improved in my third paper. I also worked on my usage of signal phrasing throughout the semester. A great example of my progress is the difference between my signal phrasing of Carol Dweck in my first and last paper. In the first paper I write, “When failing on a problem too hard for them, Dweck remarks that [quote] … .” In my third paper I write, “Carol Dweck, an American psychologist, suggests the practice and usage of a growth mindset as compared to a fixed mindset, which is characterized by the inability to think critically, a lack of perseverance through challenges, and a lack of responsibility after failure. Through multiple studies with elementary students, Dweck remarks that when failing on a problem too hard for them, students with a fixed mindset [quote] … .” The second quote introduces Dweck and her ideas much more clearly than the first. In the future, I hope to practice being able to look for errors in my papers without bias and “polish” it well.