Christian Smith

4/29/2019
English 2010
Reflections on English 2010

My time in English 2010 was quite interesting. It chiefly focused around three essays,

one in being a successful writer in a genre, another in writing conventions of a genre, and a third

in writing an essay in a specific genre, using the writing conventions. In these three essays, I’ve

refined my writing, gaining knowledge in some particular areas.

When I started, my writing process was very rudimentary; I simply sat down, and started

to write. For a paper requiring study, I would take several sources and utilize them, but not really

organize them in any real way until I have started to write. I thought I was a fine writer, and

while I was better than some, I wasn’t really all that curious in the process. It was simply writing.

Now as I progressed through the college experience I began to realize a couple thing, the most

embarrassing of which occurred during the first essay, and it is a skill that I practiced throughout

the class. Put simply, with my bibliography, why should I trust anything they say? Who is the

author? Who wrote this and what are their credentials? It is here that I began to learn about

annotated bibliographies, and from then on it’s become something I highly value, if not that

actual annotated bibliography, then the research necessary in order to set up an annotated

bibliography. Especially in political science, this is very necessary, as people will often write for

specific reasons, and even in general, many people will feel they are an authority despite not

having the knowledge for it. Because of this, one should ensure that the sources they do take

from are trustworthy, written by people who understand the subject. The results of which are

clear within my paper on the Hatred Towards the Rohingya just below my reflections. “Arraiza,

J. M., & Vonk, O. (2017, October).

 Christian Smith
4/29/2019
English 2010
Report on Citizenship Law: Myanmar. Retrieved from Cadmus European University Institute:

http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/48284/RSCAS_GLOBALCIT_CR_2017_14.

pdf?sequence=1. Arrraiza is an ICLA Specialist at the Norwegian Refugee council, and has

focused on Myanmar for much of their career, Olivier Vonk has contributed greatly to

developing the EUDO Citizenship/ UNHCR Database on Protection Against Statelessness in

Europe, and works in the Institute for the Study of International Migration. The Report on

Citizenship Law: Myanmar is a largely critical look at the legislation and implementation of the

1982 citizenship law. Explaining how the law was put into affect and how this affects various

peoples.” (Smith, The Rohingya Crisis, 2019) This is the first citation, and is probably one of the

most important things I have learned within my time at English 2010. This skill above all others

is incredibly applicable to life in general, it allows me to better scrutinize both other people’s and

my own positions. “Why do we believe this? And who told us this? And why are they trust

worthy?” are questions that should be asked more often. In learning to do annotated citations,

this has greatly improved my metacognition, allowing me to better reflect on my thinking, as

well as other’s thoughts and thought processes (Council of Writing Program Administrators,

National Council of Teachers of English, National Writing Project, 2011). This has not simply

helped with that, but just in general helps me develop skills for information literacy, the ability to

discern good sources from bad sources (SLCC'S LEARNING OUTCOMES, n.d.).

Flowing from that as well has been my metacognition. The ability to self-reflect, as I am

doing within this very paper. In this, learning a specific measurement to use, and aspects of

myself to look for are important here. In this sense, learning about the habits of mind, and in

general the “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” has proved very helpful, and

more specifically, I believe it will prove invaluable to keep reexamining myself through this lens
 Christian Smith
4/29/2019
English 2010
as I progress as a writer. As I writer, I must always keep in mind,, as I stated before “Openness- I

am very open. I think it’s important to keep in mind that the only thing we truly know, is that we

know nothing. We can very easily have different and equally valid ways of viewing the world, or

if one view is better or more valid, what’s to say that I hold that view, if I do not first open

myself up to thinking about something differently. It is important to be able to keep in mind

multiple perspectives.” (Smith, Habits of Mind)

Prewriting has also proved greatly helpful to me, and something very important for me to

learn as someone studying political science. As I said, before this class I simply wrote and wrote

until I was satisfied. But this class showed me that this was not adequate for all work, and even

when it is adequate, that there is a better way. Getting into the preplanning stages, I would first

sum up the knowledge in a field that I already know before studying further, this would allow me

to better direct both my question and my research to answer that question. Once I felt I have

researched enough I begin laying out my plan, the subjects I will talk about. It is in this particular

stage that my PowerPoint “The Rohingya Crisis” becomes very useful. A PowerPoint

presentation is often a distillation of a great deal of knowledge into a few short points, in other

words I need to take a larger paper that I am writing, and find the most effective way to

communicate the most points in the least words (SLCC'S LEARNING OUTCOMES, n.d.). For

one such example, I had to boil down the points regarding the Myanmarese parliament quickly,

preferably within mere sentences, to which this was the result.

• “The country is now a democracy, but for much of its history was a military dictatorship.

• The citizen government has no power over the military

• The military also holds a fourth of all seats in the assembly of the Union.
 Christian Smith
4/29/2019
English 2010
• The constitution requires more than three fourths of the seats to change the constitution.”

(Smith, The Rohingya Crisis Power Point)

A rather long and complicated issue, boiled down into four simple points that I would

elaborate on in context (and within the paper this PowerPoint is for).

Of final note regarding what I have learned in particular, as the importance of

writing is learning the writing conventions of whatever genre I write in. The demands

that a genre of writing requires in my writing have proved, and not only that but why. As

an example, I wrote in The Most Important Disciplinary Writing Conventions of Political

Science, “The many conventions of Political Science ultimately come back to two main

attributes of the work: The interdisciplinary nature of the field, and the ever-changing

nature of subject of study.” In that paper I looked over five disciplinary conventions,

standards that political scientists hold works within political science to, the expected way

to write and use language. Using abstracts, subtitles, and so on they help to make very

complicated and often sprawling topics into something much easier to understand and

criticize. And it is in learning all this, the disciplinary conventions and then figuring out

why they are used that I am able to learn how I should write in a certain field. It’s going

to be important to keep that in mind as well with future college work, or if I simply begin

to write outside of political science.

I’ve also learned more about my own writing. Some problems, such as a tendency

to use uncertain language or add many qualifiers into my words, “in specific” for

example was one I had to remove just now in writing this. I also tend to elaborate heavily

on topics, minor points even. In general, my writing has been focused on overlying
 Christian Smith
4/29/2019
English 2010
systems that influence events, rules, etc. Some habits of mine have proved useful, others

are problems I am working to correct.

The concepts and skills I’ve learned here will help me greatly. The annotated

bibliographies helped to touch me about analyzing my sources, and questioning that

source’s authenticity, something I did woefully few times before then. My Habits of

Mind paper would help to teach me about applying this process of criticism to myself as

well, and in general helping me to self-analyze and hopefully improve. My PowerPoint

presentation helped me with preplanning and condensing the important points of

information without losing focus. And writing The Most Important Disciplinary Writing

Conventions of Political Science has helped me to better analyze how writing is written,

and why it is written a certain way, as well as giving me the tools to better transition into

different genres of writings. These lessons each within it help me to become a better,

more versatile, and more thoughtful writer in all my classes and in my life in general, not

just in English papers.

 Christian Smith
4/29/2019
English 2010

Works Cited
Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, National Writing
Project. (2011, January). Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing. Retrieved from
Council of Writing Program Administrators: http://wpacouncil.org/files/framework-for-success-
postsecondary-writing.pdf

SLCC'S LEARNING OUTCOMES. (n.d.). Retrieved from Salt Lake Community College:
http://www.slcc.edu/gened/learning-outcomes.aspx

Smith, C. S. (2019, April 25). The Rohingya Crisis. Retrieved from Chrisandlearning:
https://chrisandlearning.weebly.com/english.html

Smith, C. S. (n.d.). Habits of Mind. Retrieved from Chrisandlearning:

https://chrisandlearning.weebly.com/english.html

Smith, C. S. (n.d.). The Rohingya Crisis Power Point. Retrieved from Chrisandlearning:
https://chrisandlearning.weebly.com/english.html