Tyra Jackson

Self-Assessment

Understanding how to “analyze and synthesize complex texts”

Now at the end of the course, I have been educated on how to analyze complex texts. My

professor has emphasized strategies that has greatly improved my writing style and process

setting me up for success in the future. The given the task to complete daily assignments and the

research process gave me respectful insight on analyzing texts. When synthesizing, it is best to

reference through inter-textuality and to write purposely with my own words. From research

format being APA, it has taught me how not to reference other texts directly but to paraphrase

the message and analyze the content with my own ideas.

Performing research “that is meaningful for a specific community”

After processing and engaging in my research, I am now able to understand the message I

am creating for my clinical community. I delegated a lot of time and effort to complete the

overall assignment involved with our research. At the beginning of my research process, I was

unaware of who I was writing to for my audience. Once I understood the community and the

base of the research that I was communicating unlocked a new development in my writing. This

allowed me to write to a higher degree framing my concept for others. I had to adjust my writing

style form MLA to APA to appropriately present my research information to the standard of my

major. It never crossed my mind that each community had a different writing style but I was

excited to learn how to composite a message in a new form. It was interesting noticing how

different the two formats are and gaining the knowledge of when to conduct papers in a certain

format.
Examining your own progress

I coined my research topic to gain prior knowledge of my major through my research

question before completing any credit courses to provide me a greater background for the

nursing field. I was worried about my topic since I have not been accepted into the nursing major

and I’m not familiar with the aspects of my major. I was also worried about my writing

capabilities as I am not a good writer and I haven’t taken a writing class in almost three years. I

even became discouraged when I faced a road block of finding information that does not involve

major, I found a lot of information that was psychology based and not medical based. However,

the psychology information on conducting research gave me more support to reference to my

investigation. Unaware of rhetoric, I learned gradually how to become confident in my writing

by implementing the writing methods thought to me. Uncertain of how to conduct my own

personal research, I took a dive into this course. My research for this course covers a small

portion of what clinical research has to offer and could continue to gain more education to cover

all the aspects of clinical research past the intel that I initially gathered. Clinical research has a

variety of characteristics that are involved in the journey of finding data that would enhance

knowledge. The take away that I gained from this course has taught me the importance of

revision. Peer review editing with my classmates and professor has opened my eyes to the

characteristics of a great sense of writing and has lead me to fix any incorrect writing styles that I

possess. I have never spent so much time to write a paper over a period of time. Matter of fact, I

barely re-read my essays before I submit them. Without the process of revisions, my paper would

not be at the status that it is today. I can greatly thank my team for assisting me through this

journey and caring for the success of my work. The major papers, research dossier, rhetorical

analysis, and research paper, written by me for this course has been reviewed by my peers. Since
then I have accomplished the learning outcomes expected of this course since the day we began

to develop draft papers. Providing my own review to my fellow peers has allowed me to take

criticism and developed feedback. This allowed me to employ revision strategies and become

more familiar od of rhetorical situations from the work of my peers. The new knowledge that I

have learned from this class has established a successful writing future for me.