Mzaliwa Bin Musaba

Academic Writing 310-2

Mars 4 2015
Metacognitive;Reflection Paper
Before enrolling in this class, I had my own process of approaching writing and
organizing my paper. It was a decent way of writing and effective in its own right. However, my
perspective on writing has taken on a gradual change. In this class, weve been introduced to a
new way of writing and perception, and a different approach than what I have experience with.
Ive learned that writing can be executed in a deeper manner. Its not just focusing on the actual
content, topic, or issue. We focus on why and how a writer chooses to deliver his or her message
most efficiently. My journey so far has been confusing, frustrating, but also inspiring as Ive
started to grasp the idea of the metacognitive concept.
I entered the class thinking that I have all the necessary skills to write a decent paper, but
I soon came to learn that was not the case. I was exposed to a new way of viewing writing
through different aspects. The basis for writing has now become relevant, and also interesting.
Just to scope the foundation of writing, I picked up the basic understanding of conventions and
genre. Conventions become the heart and core of writing; they set the ground for what you want
to assert or express. An example of this might appear in a melancholy romance novel. Here, the
conventions would probably be storytelling, emotions, sensations, love, lost, relationship etc.
These conventions are what set the ground and create the genre. I can now use this skill to break
down different writing styles into smaller aspects, and better understand the purpose of the
writing from scratch.

Prior to this to this class, I followed my own instructions on how to practice writing from
the ground up. As usual, I had slow start coming up with ideas. I started off doing some research
on the matter by reading articles or chapters of a book that relates to the topic. I felt that itd be
effective for me to analyze those type of sources, and write just based on that on that. I had no
thought or knowledge on how to organize my writing for a specific audience, I just wrote on
what I thought was relevant. After reading the chapter Rhetorical Analysis, thats when I started
to understand that my writing will be read by someone, and that I have to try and adapt my style,
and organisation to that specific reader(s). What is the purpose of this argument? What does it
hope to achieve (92)? These are questions Im asking myself when writing now.
A good, and necessary thing to practice when working on a writing assignment, is to
dissect the paper. It becomes easier to really see what the paper contains of. It is surprising to see
your ways of forming sentences, and statements. You start to ask yourself if its persuasive,
credible, opinionated, relevant etc. It has definitely helped me become more of a critical writer,
and reader. I have even become more picky on how chose to research things. Different research
method has now identifiable to me which makes it more interesting to look. I can either do
Library, Data research (books, articles, journals), or Empirical Data research (data/things
captured in real life, observations, interview, surveys, experiments), or choose an objective
approach where I or a writer talks about writing.
The course has also helped better my writing through the usage of semicolons, quotation,
commas, parentheses, bricks, hyphens, and dashes. It can be frustrating sometimes when you
want to include a statement that doesnt quite fit into a normal sentence. That is when I need to
find a loophole which are in this case different types of punctuations. These punctuations can
help clarify, or even enforce the sentence. It could be awkward to include a statement that appear

to be irrelevant to the subject matter, but with the use of a certain punctuation, it can shift from
being irrelevant to relevant.
I hadnt been introduced to APA format before this course, it still something Im trying to
adjust to since Im used to MLA format. I learned that different type of formats can, or should be
used for certain topics/papers. Business, science, or political related papers should be in APA
format, which makes sense since theres many aspects you want to cover. The usage of APA
format gives a solid walkthrough of the paper from beginning to end. You are obligated to make
a title page, give an abstract of the topic, cite sources, write summaries, and paraphrase. Some of
the stuff included in APA also applies for MLA, so its not really overwhelming.
The coursework is training me to think not only about the subject matter of the field, but
also about how they acquire knowledge in relation to society or a specific social context [i.e. a
particular scholarly or practical community]. Ive learned to think about how my academic
environment can affect my learning strategies, and how to develop the ability to transfer
knowledge among varying contexts
Im having a positive, slightly confusing experience with this course so far. This course
really aided my understanding of certain aspects of writing I had never understood before. I feel
that I can now express my ideas far more effectively. In the future my essays will be far stronger
due to new writing strategies I learned here. I am more confident about writing effectively in
future courses, but theres still more to learn. Its not just all about learning, its also about how
you can optimize your knowledge, and thats what Im striving for.