Alexander Van Dyke ENGL 2010-002 ENGL 2010 Reflection In this course, I was expected to learn how to effectively

communicate in written form by studying methods of argumentation and adapting them to the genre for which I was required to explore. The genres which we examined were rhetorical analyses, evaluations, and research/position papers. By adding some structure to my writing process, learning how to organize my written works better, and gaining a better understanding of how to effectively summarize vast amounts of information I believe that I have strengthened the quality of my writing immensely. Firstly, I have never really attempted to use any of the methods in the writing process in which a writer brainstorms and gathers ideas in order to create their preliminary draft. In the past, I have generally just begun writing the draft, and altered it along the way in order to meet course or assignment requirements. However, I decided to explore more structured and accepted methods when I worked on this courses papers. For example, when I was drafting my Rhetorical Analysis, I analyzed the subject (an advertisement) and categorized its arguments as being logos, ethos, or pathos arguments. I used these lists as a rough outline for my body paragraphs. Using this method of brainstorming in my writing process not only prevented me from missing and/or forgetting about arguments presented in the advertisement, it also saved me an immense amount of time in writing my first draft. However, at the beginning of the semester I also had some issues with the organization of my writing. In the initial draft of my Rhetorical Analysis, the organization of my body paragraphs created difficulties for the readers of my paper. By not having satisfactory topic sentences and

transitions, my paper was somewhat confusing. This fact even made it difficult for the reader to locate my thesis statement. The professor notified me of this issue immediately. I had one acceptable topic sentence in the preliminary draft of this paper, and I revised my next draft by adding solid topic sentences based on the quality of the satisfactory sentence from my first draft. Between adding topic sentences and having prominent transitions at the end of all of my body paragraphs, I eliminated any confusion. I also encountered other difficulties in organizing the content of my papers. In my Position Paper, I ran into some issues in presenting the vast amounts of information on my topic without losing its intended meaning. I also did not want to sound too repetitive by turning my paper into a list of facts. Perhaps I could have chosen a better topic, or only explored (in further detail) one of my main points of contention. However, by performing exercises on summarizing information both in class and at home, I was able to find out how to condense the information in this paper more effectively without sacrificing the substance of my papers content. By writing these papers, I believe that the quality of my writing has shown great improvement. My future courses writing assignments will not only be of a higher quality, they will also be less difficult for me to write. This is based on a more developed writing process, better content organization, and also a better understanding of summarizing and condensing large amounts of information.