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Sparks 1

Yohei Sparks

Professor Moore

COMP 1302

1 May, 2017

Reflection about This Semester: Do not use I in (almost) any paper.

In any profession, whether it is business related or a blue collar job, we all need to have

good communication skills. Writing an essay has the same idea as having a communication skill,

we all need to know how to write an essay on a professional level, one of them being when to

use the word I and when not to use it. Throughout the semester and this year as a whole, I have

learned when to use I and when not to use it.

Throughout the semester, Professor Moore has punched us in the face with knowledge

about never using the word I in our essays. Her reasoning was that it was not fire enough for

us to use it in any given situation in her class. However, there were times where she finally

surrendered and allowed us to use the word I in our Short Academic Response. In my Short

Academic Response number 2, I said Although there were plenty of other songs that I could

have analyzed but this was the only one that was within the appropriate line. This would not be

appropriate for an academic essay because putting the word I will automatically make your

paper bias and opinioned rather than simply distributing the facts and analyzing it.

There are ways to express your thoughts and analysis without using the word I. One of

the method is simply analyzing and giving inputs without using the word I. For example, In

the speech, President Reagan points out, But in the West today, we see a free world that has

achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the

Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health,


Sparks 2

even want of the most basic kindtoo little food (Lines 50-53). The Western side indeed had a

better technology because they had the support from the western world which had a better

technology than the east and also advanced quicker than eastern European nations. This

rhetorical analysis method was done as follows, first I quoted a line of a speech made by former

U.S. President Ronald Regan, and then I analyzed it by mentioning that the Western world had

greater advance in technology than the Warsaw Pact countries. It did take me eternity to

completely master this method of analysis and in my opinion, it was worth it with a capital W.

There will be many instances where we will be allowed to use the word I in a paper,

but like someone once told me You need to know the law to break the law. To make a paper

professional we cannot use the word I in papers as that would make it bias and unprofessional.

By learning to this, I have improved myself as a writer and doing this also saved my grade from

getting an zero or less on my essays that I have done for this class.

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