Reflection
I’ve always considered myself a good writer. But when I got to college, I found that I was very raw in the aspects of writing for academic purposes. In high school I had written many papers, but I came into this university feeling extremely unprepared when it came to composition. I had never really written a rhetorical analysis or argued for academic purposes. But I feel like I have always been strong in areas such as grammar, structure, and being able to translate my thoughts onto a piece of paper. Once I finished my first college level composition class, I felt more confident in my abilities concerning academic papers. That’s why I believe that after completing this semester of composition, I have displayed progress towards my development of being the best writer that I can possibly be.
After my first college level composition class, I felt more comfortable writing a rhetorical analysis. But I learned that I still had some room to grow this semester. In the first draft of my rhetorical analysis on why college athletes should be paid, I made plenty mistakes including arguing for a point myself rather than analyzing the effectiveness of the author’s argument. I went back and changed these mistakes to the best of my abilities before submitting my final draft. I analyzed the argument of the author and stated that his argument was effective. Instead of arguing his point myself in the first draft. I believe that these changes between my two drafts are evidence for the growth of my skills writing a rhetorical analysis.
When writing my academic argument, I struggled a little bit in the early stages. I picked a topic that wasn’t as common as other research papers and I payed the price. Research information relevant to my topic wasn’t impossible to find but finding different pieces of evidence to add to my argument was a challenge. After submitting my first draft, my thesis statement wasn’t stated clearly in my introduction. It was easy to tell what my argument was about and which side I was on throughout the paper, but I didn’t have a clear, strong thesis statement to begin the paper. That’s why when editing my paper before a final submission, I added a much better thesis statement which read, “This is why I believe that unless the game of football experiences major rule changes concerning player safety, I believe that young children and amateur athletes should reconsider their participation in the game of football.” This gives my audience more clarity on my side of the argument, what the topic of the whole paper is, and all while showing what I learned from peer review and which steps I could take to improve my academic argument.
I had also touched base on the rhetorical appeals in my first composition class. In high school I didn’t really ever use these appeals and didn’t know much about them. Through my first college composition course and after applying them this semester, I learned more about these appeals. This can be seen in both my writings of project 1 and project 3 were I had to observe, and also use these appeals to my advantage. Project 1 required me to understand and critique the appeals the author used in the article that I had to analyze. While writing project 3, I used the examples that I had observed during my rhetorical analysis and applied them to my own argument. This is also great evidence of my growth as a writer because of my use of rhetorical appeals. I could not have included these appeals in my writing before this course.
After completing this course, I feel much more confident in my ability to write academic papers appropriately. This is an extremely valuable skill to possess in the future whether it could be used in the workforce while writing reports or whatever the purpose may be. Perhaps the most useful aspect of completing this course, is taking this knowledge that I’ve obtained and putting it to use throughout my remaining years in college and my desired field of study. The writing skills I’ve gained from this course will help me thrive in future writing assignments and therefore give me the confidence I need to be successful.