Marissa Hernandez

Professor Zawilski

RC 2001

December 11, 2017

Final Reflection
Part 1
The project that I felt demonstrated the most critical thinking, read, and writing was the
rhetorical analysis. I was not confident throughout the whole process. However, when I began to
revise my first final draft, I finally understood the purpose of the paper. My understanding better
developed by the continued class discussion that regarded rhetoric. Also the video that Professor
Bret made was very helpful because he was specific in what needed to be revised and gave an
explanation of why and how it would benefit the paper as whole. The concepts of logos and
ethos are the most applicable in my writing because I compose a lot of research papers for my
other classes. Therefore, I need to appeal to my audiences reasoning and establish credibility to
write an effective research paper.
I am not confident in my writing because I make a lot of grammatical errors and I feel
like my sentences are structured poorly. However, through the course I developed a better
vocabulary, research method, and practiced critical thinking. I have learned that my writing
process is very slow and to start a paper, I have to just write and write to get my ideas on paper.
After I get all my ideas down on paper, I go through and organize the ideas out by bullet points.
Then underneath the bullet points I begin to write a paragraph pertaining to the idea. I then
change the format into that of a paper and focus on the flow and transition of each paragraph. I
revise the draft by taking out unnecessary parts/information, restructuring and rewording
sentences, and have a peer review it as well. I then create a reference page with all the resources
that I used listed. I re-read the paper and make any necessary changes and then submit a finished
text.
I have learned that word counts intimidate me and stumps my creative process because
sometimes I feel if I add more material it may lessen the quality of my paper. I feel more
confident in my composing of papers at the end of this semester. I am now able to find credible
and effective resources for my essays. Also I have learned that to write an effective paper I need
to really take my time on each part of paper, constantly read the section to make sure it makes
sense, and have another peer review my writing.
The writing I performed this semester, specifically the rhetorical analysis and
research/argumentative paper will relate to the political science field. I conducted extensive
research and learned new persuasive methods which are very valuable skills in the field. I
learned that the role of writing in my field depends on the purpose of the author. Therefore, the
role of writing in my field can differ for every individual. I think I will encounter format or
citation errors in my upper-level coursework because in all my other classes we typically use
MLA formatting. However, as a result of this course I was introduced to APA formatting, a style
I had never used before.
 I learned that when composing a rhetorical analysis do not focus on the content, rather
focus on what the content and mechanisms used do for the piece and audience. The rhetorical
analysis differed form previous kinds of analytic writing by the incorporation of new writing
devices such as exigence and kairos. Additionally, this paper differed from the rest of the
assignments because you needed to use APA style. My composing process changed when
creating my multimodal mini-ethnography because I had to alter my drafting process, adopt a
foreign tone, and resort to innovative research resources such as interviews. I think the role of
research-grounded argumentation is to become more informed about an issue or idea within a
field and then provide a potential resolution or innovation to the discourse.

Part 2
I analyzed and responded to the articles The Real Opioid Emergency and The War on
Drugs is a War on Racial Justice and wrote with the purpose of informing my reader of the
tactics used by the authors to invoke action from their audience. I also demonstrated critical
thinking and reading when analyzing both the articles because they came from two different
sources, one scholarly and one non-scholarly. I had to identify the strategies the authors used in
their pieces, then had to think critically about how the strategies effected the audience and if the
author met their goal of persuasion. I demonstrated the correct use of APA formatting in this
paper as well.
I exhibited increasing disciplinary awareness when constructing my multimodal mini-
ethnography. I read and analyzed texts I had never encountered such as fashion studies, books,
and journals. Additionally, I applied disciplinary awareness to the creation of my own text when
choosing my medium/format for my mini-ethnography. The format of my mini-ethnography was
a fashion magazine, which specifically pertained to the field of fashion design and
merchandising. I incorporated an interview (a primary source) and academic articles (a
secondary source) in my magazine as well.
I referred to the ideologies of others and my own when writing my major issues essay. I
conducted extensive research on databases to become familiar with the issues and ideas of
experts in the field. Then I used critical thinking to formulate my own arguable thesis. I
employed rhetorical strategies (lens) to argue my thesis and influence the need for action. This
assignment was different format, MLA style, which satisfies the at least two documentation
styles requirement.
I recognized that the writing process requires drafting, I exercised this requirement by
writing two drafts for every assignment. The drafts were then revised and edited by my peers,
myself, and my professor. The reflections I wrote after submitting each final draft, allowed me to
reflect on the disciplinary differences across academic writing such as differing formats and
terminology. The reflections also allowed me to reflect on the finished text, helped me identify
what I should revise in the future, and how to better my writing process as a whole.