Week 2 Self Reflection

In the past two weeks I have learned that researching a topic is extremely time consuming
and it involves various types of media. Reading the AGWR and Bird on Fire I has helped me
gain insight into what goes on in writing an academic piece of writing. The AGWR offers great
guidelines to follow in the writing process while Bird on Fire offers a direct example of some of
the guidelines that the AGWR emphasizes. With the help of these two academic books, I chose to
focus my research topic on the ongoing problem with the lack of improvement in the air quality
in Fresno, California.
Although initially I had a somewhat difficult time focusing my research in one specific
area, I was able to locate what I wanted to research after attending office hours. Initially, my
research topic was air quality in Fresno, although there are existing problems with the air quality
in Fresno simply stating air quality in Fresno as my research issue was vague and did not provide
any for an academic opinion. After viewing some articles from Twitter I became interested in air
quality but I became specifically interested in Fresno because this city bears a resemblance to my
hometown.
Some other information that I found particularly interesting and important from my
Twitter Feed was economic inequality and social justice that arises when talking about urban
issues. Although certain policies do exist to protect the environment and people, most people that
live with these problems (such as achievement gaps, pollution, housing difficulties, etc.) on a day
to day basis are in fact people who are economically and socially disadvantaged. Furthermore,
despite the fact that the United States is a well-developed country it faces the same problems as
third world countries, yet with more obstacles I would say, mainly because there is great denial
of the existence of these problems.
From other research that I conducted this week I explored websites of activists groups in
the Fresno area, World Health Organization (WHO), and Clean Air Primer. In the activist website

I found some social issues that the area faces, social issues that I plan to state with statistical
evidence and facts I found from WHO and Clean Air Primer. Some of the phrases that I found
most effective when using these websites was air, pollution, smog, policy, Fresno, and particulate
matter.
Although, I found a copious amount of data from my research I quickly learned that it
will not be possible to use all of it. Not only because it would be too much but also because not
all the data I found is written by experts in this field and most importantly some of the data that I
found is very outdated. These are a few things I learned that you should be careful with when
gathering evidence to support your research topic, because all the evidence used to support your
research should be solid concrete evidence.
Week 3 Reflection
For the past few weeks I have been gathering various sources for my HCP, at first I was
undecided about my research topic but then I found one that I felt that was both interesting and
important. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the fact that one of the requirements for the paper and
the portfolio was to be multimodal. I felt overwhelmed by this aspect of the prompt because I felt
that I had to be careful and effective when using these new elements in my writing process. At
first I also wanted to keep my work on Canvas but I got bored of it very quick and personally felt
like the setup was very plain. Currently I have all my work stored in Canvas and on my flash
drive but I have decided to change the location of my files to Wix, Im in process of figuring out
how to allow comments to be posted on the pages and how to keep traditional windows
formatting on the most important writing assignments.
As part of the multimodal aspect of the course, we have created various sites to track our
work and other urban issues, engaging in these social media conversation and posts has been
very new to me as I dont usually participate in social media. Although I know that we are in a

technological social world I have never been registered and active on so many websites as I
currently am. I have found Twitter and Delicious particularly helpful and I have found that
keeping tags and hashtags on both of these sites is extremely beneficial, however I do not like the
word limit imposed on Twitter.
A particular topic which I have found particularly interesting apart from my own research
topic is education achievement gaps and how this achievement gap has been created not so much
due as to the education system but mainly as a result of socioeconomic differences in our society.
Although this article is an Op-Ed http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-childleft-behind/?_r=0, I have read other sources(
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/business/economy/education-gap-between-rich-and-pooris-growing-wider.htmlfile:///D:/Education%2050/Readings/An%20hereditary%20meritocracy
%20_%20The%20Economist.pdf,)about achievement gaps and the same ideas tend to resonate. I
became interested in this topic not only because I enrolled in an education class but also because
I spoke to someone in the class who has this topic and I find their argument quite interesting and
difficult to argue when there is so much information on the topic.
While looking and searching for interesting post related to my topic and other urban
policy I have found good news. Particularly the fact that the Obama administration has passed
several laws this year that are geared towards environmental protection, nationally while
working internationally with other countries to pass similar laws in their countries. While
researching my topic I also found out that I heavily relied on government sources when
presenting statistics. I feel like I also need to add more graphics and visual elements to my
paper, perhaps some hyperlinks as well in order to make my paper more multimodal. I am still
struggling in organizing some of my data in my portfolio and I plan to ask more questions from
peers who are using the same method as me to create their portfolio. In class I plan to ask more

questions in order to have a better understanding of what we should achieve each time we have
class.
HCP-Self Reflective Essay
For my Historical Conversations Project, I decided to focus my research on the current
and ongoing air quality problem that Fresno, California has faced in the past 40 years. I chose to
direct my energies on this cause and city particularly, because the air quality problem in this area
has become a problem which has troubled the area for years and has failed to improve as it has
been expected. For this reason my paper contained a lot of evidence that is not directly quoted
rather it is given in a form that relies both evidence and my voice on the issue without being
particularly bias. In order to achieve this in my paper, I provided multiple sources of information,
multiple aspects that make this issue problematic, and it took me multiple drafts to properly
convey the issue respectively.
Through this researched based composition I learned that research on the topic has to be
derived from sources that are reliable, composed primarily by experts in the fields, in order for
my argument to be taken seriously and considered an academic piece. The research should be
primarily be derived from reliable resources yet they should also be varied, meaning that the
sources should not only agree on one solid aspect of the issue but should include various
elements that contribute to the issue. The sources should also vary in the fact that they are
gathered from different databases, meaning that the similar views on this issue are found in
government databases, as well as in newspapers, academic articles, and other research-type of
writing. The sources should not only be taken from one party but multiple parties, such as those
oppose to the issue and those supporting it. These sources should also have connecting ideas,
argument central to the issue and how they are linked to other aspects of the problem as whole.
Rather than just reading all these sources, I found that research can be improved by making
source evaluations and annotating sources because they are extremely helpful when referencing a

specific source to make specific arguments. These source evaluations and annotation come in
handy in beginning the writing process. However, I became incredible aware that despite having
read various sources, not all sources need to be included in the actual research composition,
because they sometimes will not be entirely be relevant or the connection to the central issue is
sometimes weak in support. Writing multiple drafts helps eliminate certain sources that are rather
unnecessary.
Another element that I have learned in the process of generating a research-based
composition was the fact that multi-modality can increasingly help them develop the argument
and achieve to persuade audiences. For example, the my HCP draft failed to provide sufficient
visual evidence that reflect the dire situation which Fresno faces, however my revised HCP
includes a map of California. This map not helps establish the existence of the problem, but also
helps us see Fresno in a bigger picture, this meaning that despite the fact that Fresno in the
macro-level is just one city in a thousand, the fact that the rest of California seems to be headed
in a similar path, helps establish the urgency to resolve the problems in Fresno at the micro-level
before we have to face it in a macro-level. While multi-modality certainly helps communicate
certain ideas in this mulita-modal composition, it is also quite challenging to introduce these
aspects into a writing piece, because the visuals have to be efficient in conveying messages
rather than detrimental, which can happen if they are not explained on the paper or are not all
that relevant with the information being presented. For example in my first HCP draft I had three
graphs of the rate of asthma hospitalization in the area of Fresno throughout the past decade,
however I do not think I added significant or a correct explanation to connect air quality with this
issue, therefore the importance of these graphs was rather lost and detrimental to my central
argument because it failed to achieve its purpose rather it just took up space from the argument.
In my revised version of the HCP I used in one of the three graphs that I originally had, and

explained it better. I also added more visuals and hyperlinks to the paper to provide a better
understanding on the topic. I added these emulate-modal elements to my HCP after several of my
peers commented on my lack of visual representations, I also got similar feedback from an email
on my paper.
Perhaps one of the most important aspect in generating a research-based composition is
the drafting process, specifically the feedback that is given from peers that revise these drafts. I
found the honest feedback from peer revision extremely helpful because they would often point
out silly mistakes that I would have forgotten to correct before turning in my paper such as runons, grammatical errors, formatting issues, and suggestions that would improve my paper
overall. These peer revisions were helpful because it gave me an indication on what my audience
expected as well as provided a benchmark(direction) as to where I should focus my attention.
For example, below is screenshot of how my essay was lacking in proper citation and
examples(in the left) , to the right is a better version of the paper which shows a great amount of
improvement that not only shows a stronger argument but overall a better well informed
argument based and supported on factual evidence and good visual representations.

Overall I think my writing has greatly improved, not only through but because I caught
myself from falling back into old habits. Rather than starting over I would keep on writing until I
found a specific paragraph or sentence that I liked and then I would use it, expanding on the idea
and often turning it into a paragraph. However sometimes I felt that I just needed to write an
entire paragraph separate from the entire paper and then later add it on based on its connectivity
to the thesis or I would get rid of it.
.