Anthony G.

Le
Jaya Dubey
Writing 39C
13 June 2014
A Journey Through Writing: A Self-Reflection
Over the past ten weeks in Writing 39C, I took an academic journey developing myself as
a writer. Although I was exposed to writing research papers before in high school it was not like
writing research papers for Writing 39C. In high school, research papers was just going through
different sources and pulling out quotes and evidence, but within this course I learned that it was
much more than just that. I had to really take the information that I unraveled and analyze it
before I could use it for my own paper. Key skills that I learned and developed over the course
of the ten weeks was to find reliable sources and continuously digging for valuable information
that could be used for my essay.
Alongside finding sources I also developed integrating those sources into my writing
itself. From the quotes and facts I found and included, I also learned to integrate photos and
visuals into my work. By incorporating these aspects and making my essay multi-modal, I am
able to hold onto my audience to keep them interested, inform them, and affect them
emotionally. For example I would use photos like these to appeal to my audience. Before I never
used evidence like photos to be included within my work. While incorporating pictures I also
learned to also make those photos relevant and connected within the essay instead of just being
inserting it and leaving it there. Although I have practiced these skills I still think that I have
more to learn about creating a better multi-modal essay. I remember when I first started I had
trouble finding photos that would be of substance within my essay and being able to integrate the
photo so that it also looks appealing. After learning in class and asking classmates, I was able to
put incorporate new aspects into my work.
Before writing and outlining what I started off by creating a list of keywords that I would
use to gather and collect research from. As I researched and throughout writing my essays as
well, I would slowly build my list of keywords to research from. Slowly this list grew and grew
as I continued to develop more and more ideas. By collecting information first I was able to get a
grasp onto what I was going to be discussing about in my essays. Alongside gathering my
thoughts, researching also allowed me to jumpstart my writing since I would have all this
information ready to just write about. As I wrote my essay though I also took in major
consideration of the questions that our instructor provided to help us shape our assignment. With
those questions, I felt I was on the right track molding my essay into an assignment that our
instructor wanted. The prompt itself was very vague so I am very grateful that my instructor, Ms.
Jaya Dubey, helped us giving us questions to help guide our essay. Her questions also gave me
fuel to keeping my mind thinking and giving my essay more substance. The questions were not
my only sources of ideas, but it helps me stem new ideas to help me elaborate on my essay. Over
the course of the quarter I also developed my work through writing and rewriting to perfect my
writing. I learned that I never could write the perfect paper the first time around. By rewriting I
am able to elaborate and express my thoughts more fully than the first time around. In my first
drafts I tend to write, but never elaborate enough on the ideas I am writing about. I always think
that I addressed the topics enough, but when I go over and read the draft again, I end up always
adding more into the draft. For source evaluations and annotations I would never do the
annotation or evaluations ahead of time, but instead as I browsed through different websites and
found research, I
took notes on the
sites themselves
with the
information they
had to help me
organize and provide myself an easy glance over each source I had. By writing notes and by
rewriting, I felt as if I was to be more effective in before writing the full essay itself. Through the
outlining questions, research, and taking notes I would be able to get always jumpstart my
writing mode. It is always hard to continue writing after taking a break or losing my track, so
always having notes and information to go back to always helped me get back into the groove of
writing my essay.
As I looked on the Internet for research I would always first look at what type of website
I am on and get a feel if I could trust the website or not. I would like to say I am sufficient
enough at information literacy and that I am confident enough to determine if a source is reliable
or not. Once I determined if a source was reliable and quotable, I would go through the source to
get an idea of what information is relevant for my essay. After finding the relevant solution I
would use quotes from the source to write about what I am talking about and help support my
claims. I think that I have a decent grasp on incorporating other voices into my work. I feel that I
know how to put the voices of others to help me support my ideas into my essay, but I believe
that I could still practice and develop my skills. I know I am able to sufficiently use summaries
and taking direct quotations, but I still have a shaky grasp on incorporating block quotations and
patch writing. I tend to stray away from using black quotes and patch writing because I do not
feel as confident including them in my work compared to paraphrasing and summarizing. As I
also integrate the voices of others, I tried my best to not take their words out of context or
misrepresent what they are trying to say. To avoid bad source integration I made sure that I fully
understood what was being said in the sources
that I pulled from.
As I created my two compositions and
making them multi-modal, I learned that I can
strengthen my argument and be more effective
by including aspects like photos or videos into
my work. By making my work multi-modal I
increase the ethos, pathos, and logos on the
audience therefore persuading the audience
more effectively. By making my work multi-modal as well it also inspired me to continue
writing more to elaborate on my thoughts and the photograph as well. Some of the pictures
included also would illustrate my ideas and give me even more support for my claims. While
researching for causes of
homelessness and how to reduce
homelessness, I was able to
stumble upon my solution on
accident. At first I thought that
our solution would have to be an act or one that our government would have to start. Thus in my
presentation for my solution I brought up bills that are currently in Congress, but when I found
my other solution I thought that it would be much more effective than the bill itself. The biggest
reason I felt that the program I found would be much more effective than the bill was that the bill
would have to take a long time to go through Congress and still take a while to be implemented
compared to a program that could make
some progress now before the issue becomes
out of hand. I also had trouble getting
myself to support the bill because I felt there
were so many holes in the bill that effects
the others while the program itself would be efficient and show that if it works in both New York
and Los Angeles that it could work almost anywhere. Although, yes the solution I am advocating
has its own flaws, I felt that the program itself would make take a bigger step towards ending
homelessness than the others. To support my claims I would show that my solution has its own
cons but also bring up how the pros would outweigh the cons all together. I also showed how
other solutions had bigger flaws than the one I was advocating.
During my presentation for my solution I felt that I was able show that homelessness is a
major problem that should be addressed. The issue of homelessness itself does not seem to be a
major threat, as we do not see the problem often, thus that is a problem all on its own. After
introducing the problem I would explain the main problems of what is happening and how it can
be detrimental to us. Once I established the severity of the issue for the audience I introduced my
solutions and ways we can take the first step towards ending homelessness. Even after taking
about solutions I also included solutions that were very doable right after my presentation like
changing our views and giving more efforts to assisting the homeless. As a class, when I heard
my other classmates present their own solutions, I found that all our problems and issues are
interconnected and that one solution could also solve another. After hearing others talk about
their own solutions helped me think about how I should advocate my own solution. Since so
many of the solutions presented in class could help solve the other problems I saw that a majority
of the problems we have are overlapped. If we slowly solve one problem at a time we can make a
difference in the long run since one problem is a stem of another.
For revisions, I would look over what I wrote a couple of times. I found that each time I
read over my work that there would be something I could add or something I could take out and
edit. By rereading my work and looking over it once more I found that I could always improve.
When I received comments from others and my teacher, it was hard because it is hard for me to
take criticism, but they both allow me to understand what I should think about as I rewrite my
work or improve on for my next assignment. Whenever I receive critics from others I feel as if
my self-esteem goes down, even though I know that the critics themselves are meant to help me
improve. No matter what though, when I do receive comments I do still consider the ideas the
person are giving me. When I critic others I personally like to critic using my own style as a
reference and as a basis to critic others. I also personally tend to take my instructors comments
into consideration more compared to my peers as I feel that my instructor would be more
knowledge about my writing in the end. When I revise my essays I tend to rewrite the sentences I
have to express what I was trying to focus in my assignment, unless I feel that the whole
paragraph would fit
better in another
spot in my essay I
would then
restructure my
essay. Depending on
the damage done, I
would adjust my
essay accordingly. I know that I should really take account all the comments I can receive, but it
is something that I continue to struggle with. I hope to grow out of being unable to take criticism
so heavily and use all critics I receive.
Now that I have finally completed the Writing 39 series I feel that I am confident enough
to take what I have learned throughout the rest of my life. From the prewriting, researching, the
revisions, and incorporating new aspects into my work I can take my work to another level. I
know that I can really take the skills I learned Writing 39C into the rest of my life. The 39C
course focuses around research and that is something I will be doing for the rest of my life. By
being able to find evidence and support for my ideas I can show the world that there is meaning
to what I have to say. From the course series I truly learned to look at the world in a different
aspect and a way to express myself. I know also that I can take what I have learned and bring it
into my other courses where I have to write essays or express a certain idea in general. The skills
I have learned from the Writing 39C series will reach out into other fields of study like science
and history where I would have to write lab reports and essays. In general I have developed not
only how to write but to express myself to the world.