Ferguson 1

Ken Ferguson

Dr. Matey

ENG 101

24 April 2019

Rough Draft of Critical Reflection: Reviewing My Works

Adjusting from high school writing to college writing has been a bit difficult. This is not

necessarily the real world yet but I am well on my way, and I realize that. With the difficulties of

balancing my new social life and keeping up with my grades, everything from an education

perspective has been tough to handle. One of the biggest things that I have struggled with is

writing. The concept of writing out a strong thesis that makes sense, staying on topic and not

trailing off, and being able to explore different aspects of a topic without inserting too many

filler words has never been easy for me to do. But, fortunately, in high school I was able to get

by without having to rewrite or strongly reflect on any of my work and still get a grade that is a

high B or a low A. In high school there were many handouts that I didn't even realize that were

given to me, but, in college there are none. Writing in college has been, so far, a journey. And in

this journey, I am learning my strengths and weaknesses and what I could change or do better in

the future, but, from a personal point of view, I feel like I am still at the same level from when I

got here from high school. Commented [kf1]: Peer reviewer said that my thesis is
there but need to be arguable.
One skill that I have noticed throughout the writing of this english class is my ability to

switch from informal to formal writing. While t The tone of voice and the way that certain words

are placed in a sentence are very different in both forms of writing. While writing informally, a Commented [kf2]: “unfinished sentence” I agree it
was not very clear.
paragraph can be read as a person just talking about a topic without deeply analyzing the topic

and discussing its many details. “I never liked peer reviewing. I think that it is, in a way, very
 Ferguson 2

useless and a waste of time. I personally see it as a negative contribute to one’s writing. Reason

being is because when a peer reviews a paper they may not even read and give fake compliments

and no critiques, or they do read it and still give no critiques. I feel like the peer reviewer is not

going to fully understand or want to help the writer. The teacher is the one that is grading it, so I

think that the teacher should be the one to review it in the process because they are the ones with

the degree, not the peers.’’ This was my response to a discussion board Week 3 about our view

on peer review. That discussion post has very few comparison to a formal writing where there

are more layers to what I am stating or arguing about. “When speaking of race, in any aspect, it

can be very sensitive for certain people to talk about. Given the history of society and what has

been socially acceptable, particularly in the United States, it can be very difficult to look back at

the events in history and When speaking of race, in any aspect, it can be very sensitive for certain

people to talk about. Given the history of society and what has been socially acceptable,

particularly in the United States, it can be very difficult to look back at the events in history and

not feeling any sort of disappointment or even hatred, depending on what someone’s race is, .not

feeling any sort of disappointment or even hatred, depending on what someone’s race is. There

have been countless cases where the color of a person’s skin is more important than what they

know and what skills they have. The race of someone can also affect their opportunities to get

jobs, education, or to even live. Back in 2013, there was a raise in awareness in the world on

police brutality and the fact that there are many people that kill, hurt, and threaten black people,

still to this day, because they are simply black. This movement was called Black Lives Matter.

People supported other black people of hate crimes or supported their families after they passed

from a hate crime. The justice system never helps when it comes to these crimes, therefore there

is no protection. Now that we have a President that wants to build a wall, the justice system will
 Ferguson 3

not be getting any better any time soon. In recent 2019 Oscars Spike Lee won his first Oscar,

after his speech Trump tweeted that he was making a racist hit on him. Each news outlet that

addresses this story portrays it in a different way based off the facts that they put in and leave

out.” In the informal writing, I am just going off personal experience and it was just an opinion.

In the formal writing my opinion, or argument, was still present but I didn't write based on my

past experiences or what iI thought happens to other people. I wrote based off ofoff past and

present news stories and blogs that have been spread across our country and summarized it.

Also, m My tone of voice in my informal writing was very different from my formal

writing. The tone of the rhetor is very important. The reader may or may not want to read what

the rhetor is writing based off the tone. The informal writing was somewhat, harsh with the

discussion board post because it starts off in the first couple of sentences in a very rude way.

Saying “I never liked peer reviewing.” comes off very blunt, mean, emotional, and in a way

closed-minded. As the reader continues to read the post it is very evident that there is no purpose

other than for the rhetor, me, to express their feelings. Where as when it comes to formal writing,

the introduction is very gentle but also straight to the point. “When speaking of race, in any

aspect, it can be very sensitive for certain people to talk about. Given the history of society and

what has been socially acceptable, particularly in the United States, it can be very difficult to

look back at the events in history and not feeling any sort of disappointment or even hatred,

depending on what someone’s race is.” These first few sentences allowed me to go deeper on the Commented [kf3]: This was repeated to make a point
on how my tone of voice was
topic, and as I went on writing, there was more commentary and complementary points also to

help the reader understand where I was coming from and what I was trying to convey from the

beginning.
 Ferguson 4

Those two skills, or abilities, that Have been brought forth are still things that I can

improve on. Another item that needs more improvement is making my thesis more narrow and

also putting it in a way where the reader can point out the thesis and know where the paper is

leading to. “When speaking of race, in any aspect, it can be very sensitive for certain people to

talk about. Given the history of society and what has been socially acceptable, particularly in the

United States, it can be very difficult to look back at the events in history and not feeling any sort

of disappointment or even hatred, depending on what someone’s race is.” This was my thesis for

my Rhetorical Analysis essay. It was not as specific as it should have been for the direction that I

wanted to go for the paper. Commented [kf4]: Was unneeded because if gave off
the same information
The paper was reviewing different outlets on the topic of Trump saying that Spike Lee

was being racist towards him during his speech. The purpose of the thesis was to bring an

argument on the issue and turn the reader to a straight direction toward the next body paragraph.

Instead it was very vague and somewhat all over the place because when only looking or

readingt the thesis, a person can assume that I am about to start stating things about slavery, the

concetrationsconcentration camps from WWII with people of the Japanese race, or how

immagrantsimmigrants that are in America have it harder when they are just trying to live like

everyone else. Those are just a few topics that I could've been writing about or those may be a

few topics that the audience are thinking from only reading the thesis statement. In saying that,

my thesis statements tend to be on track but not enough to where it leads the audience. Or they

tend to be a sentence that is present but does not have an argument to it. Commented [kf5]: My peer reviewer said this should
be a body paragraph and not a conclusion but the only
reason it was at the end was because I didn’t have
While taking this journey through out this course, me seeing myself as a writer has enough time to write my conclusion and I had to turn in
the paper before the dead line
become questionable. Though I have weak points just like every other writer, my ability to

correctly communicate to audience my perspective is not strong. My writing still looks the same
 Ferguson 5

from high school. In saying that, my writing reflects that I only understand the obvious parts of

rhetoric. Meaning, I can understand when a writer is using pathos or logos, but to go deeper into

thos rhetorical appeals does not come easy. Fortunately, my views on digital literacy has

changed. When hearing those words, I could on think of blogs online or maybe subtitles on TV. I

never thought that it meant pictures too. In this class I have learned to see that pictures can speak

a thousand words in the aspect of rhetorical appeal. But none the less, me being able to see and

anylsis a picture mentally does not connect with writing it on paper.