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Kris Hernandez

Professor Beadle

English 115

May 10, 2019

Reflection Essay

As a student, I have always had my strengths and weaknesses. My academic weakness

however, has always been writing essays. I was more of a hands on or presentation type of

person. Especially since at a young at I have known what my career path was, I never was fond

with English classes at all. But after I have received the class English 115, I can see the true

influence this class has put upon me. Not only has it helped me as a writer, but it has clarified

many subjects in which I struggled on. For example, I used to never include sources in any

essays I wrote. I didn’t even know of the MLA style for essays. This English class also taught me

how to ignore the usual format middle school students were taught. This opened my mind and

help me think and write more critically. I found connecting themes difficult as well, and properly

executing them at the proper time. Flowage was a main problem in my essays as well, which

didn’t really connect my main ideas together.

This class has helped me in so many countless ways. I used to think essays didn’t need to

have any style at all. In fact, I always received good grades on my essays since I had my own

style from middle school. I personally found my essays fine, until I found out later on that they

weren’t going to cut it. My typical essays were weak, no sources, no citation, no formatting at

all, it’s actually quite embarrassing. When I first entered CSUN I received tutoring. They were a

big help for after class refreshers in how to execute my ideas. Also how to use and prove Pathos,

Ethos, and Logos in an essay.

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The required textbook “Understanding Rhetoric” was actually quite informative. I found

this textbook the most useful than any other book for other classes. It gives the reader the feeling

as if it was a comic book. I am quite fond of comic books and fund it interesting to analyze the

detail inputted to this book. information upon what is rhetoric, allegories, ideas and the 3 main

ideas in a essay, really helped e think before I wrote my essays so I could know what the reader

should expect from me as well as m professor.

Refutation and rebuttal of an argument was pretty tricky to learn. But of course, with a lot

of practice, you can learn anything. In fact, I learned how to counter a quote and as well make it

relevant to my thesis. On top of that to keep the argument flowing throughout my whole essay

and for the reader to keep in mind. A great tutor once told me to organize my essay as a Russian

doll. The little wooden doll in the middle is the thesis, and to keep building up to the main idea

until the ‘doll’ gets huge and I could expect the little doll in the middle still as well.

I also learned how to cite my sources. I was aware of plagiarism, but I wasn’t aware of

how strict college can be and how serious a crime can be if I were to steal someone’s work. I

learned as well to organize in alphabetical order my sources in the works cited page. There was

many techniques in which I learned in the LRC lab as well as the English 115 class. I also used

websites to help me identify the type of citation I should use.

My sources weren’t always valid. As a student, we mostly use Wikipedia for our sources

without realizing that it’s one of the most unreliable sources yet. Anyone could access this

information and misguide others to false information. After learning CSUN students were

granted access to the Oviatt library tool, finding sources was made much easier for all of us.
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To wrap up this essay, this was one of the most useful classes yet. I am curious if I will

ever use it in fixing computers however, but the more knowledge one has, the more opportunities

one has in life. I want to give a big thank you to my professor and all the tutors at the LRC for

helping me along the way to improve my essays and in general make me a better writer.