REFLECTION
During ENC 2135, I became more aware of my writing style and the analysis required when examining other works. Everything, including genre, rhetorical analysis, source locating, and identification are skills that I wasn't comfortable with beforehand. In the past, writing was simply a daunting task for me, as I would have trouble finding information from online sources, even outside the realm of English courses. Even after finding the necessary information, I wasn't confident in expanding on it and creating my own analysis. It would take me hours on end just to do a single essay. The structure of this course really helped me in breaking down the different elements of my writing style and provided me the opportunity to identify my shortcomings and create strategies to overcome them.
From the very first project, the annotated bibliography, I learned how to locate scholarly sources using different search engines and assess the quality of each source. Part of this project included scavenging through a plethora of information and finding what was useful for the topic at hand. Connecting each source to one another so that each built on the other expanded the text by viewing each piece of evidence as a connection to the main argument. This approach was especially beneficial for the investigative field essay when conflicting sources provided differing information. In these cases, further analysis was required to determine how each source came to collect their data, such as experimental constraints, methods, or even regions. As far as scholarly articles were concerned, some of these articles consisted of more than 100 pages of dedicated research. Normally such material would seem like way too much information to dissect, but part of taking this course meant that I needed to be able to isolate only the necessary information that was relevant to my research question. Instead of reading through every piece of information, I only needed to go through the results and research methods of the experiments; this made the concluding results of each article simpler to understand and incorporate into the essay.
Upon the completion of each project, the peer review section followed. For my first peer review session, two other classmates and I took turns looking over at each other's final drafts, identifying the strong and weak points within our essays and providing feedback on how we can each improve. It was here that I learned that I could have improved my writing by citing sources in a more diverse manner. For instance, rather than simply quoting a source, it helps to embed or even paraphrase the text into your essay while still giving credit to the original source. By doing so, my writing was able to seem more sophisticated and let the reader know that I had more confidence in the subject matter. Besides peer review, my instructor, Professor Meng, also gave personalized feedback for each project. Regarding the investigative field essay, Professor Meng helped me narrow down the information for my research question. During our conference, he told me that my initial research question was, "How do fraternal organizations impact student life?" could have interpreted it as being too broad. To address this issue I simply narrowed down my research question to include the impact of student academics and mental health. In doing so, it gave both me and the readers a clear idea of what my essay was going to be about and thus allowed me to identify sources that were oriented toward these facets of student life. I found myself having less trouble with the content of my writing and its research the further I went along with the project.
The second project of the semester consisted of a rhetorical analysis of artifacts of our own choosing. It was here that I started to learn more about writing. It was broken into tiny pieces, and when they were put back together, they made sense. After choosing an artifact, I broke it down to isolate each element, including purpose, rhetorical devices, media, and an analysis of what each subject meant. The in-class assignments and student examples gave me a clear understanding of what to look for within each artifact. Something as simple as an Instagram reel all the way to peer-reviewed articles became much easier to dissect. What made this particular project more compelling was that the three required artifacts had to be different in nature. For example, I wouldn't be able to use three articles as my artifacts, but rather a single article and any other two artifacts, whether it be a social media post or even a video. Each artifact portrayed its information in its own way and had a purpose for its creation. Through this project, I was able to view any given artifact from the author's perspective and identify the reasons they chose to write or depict information in that manner.
After each project I was provided the opportunity to reflect on my progress and identify where I excelled and came short when the finished product was complete. Even while writing this reflection, I can look back and see how much I have improved as a writer. Looking back, the fundamentals, including the first assignment of "identifying discourse communities," helped in my completion of the class projects, especially during project 1. By understanding the communities I belong to and incorporating them into my writing, I made this class more enjoyable and relatable to my life, making the research more engaging. With the new knowledge of writing, I deemed it necessary to go back and revise my first project. The purpose of these revisions was to make my writing smoother and easier to read by providing a cleaner analysis of the information I was using to write my text. Upon completion of these revisions, I feel that the knowledge provided by this course has ultimately made me a more self-aware reader and writer who not only looks upon the surface layer of a text but can also identify and replicate the nuances that a writer has within my own work.