Welcome Introduction

Throughout these past ten weeks in Writing 39C my classmates and I were required to write two big papers that required a significant amount of research along with smaller supplementary assignments to aid us in the process. Although I encountered some difficulty along the way, I would say that I have finished the course with new knowledge and I have completed the course as an improved writer. I have gotten better, especially with researching, but I know that there is still a lot I have to learn and that I can continue to improve. I really had to put in the work for my writing and dedicate time to research for my papers, but I know that these skills are invaluable, especially since I am a bio major; these skills will be beneficial to me when conducting my own research for other courses. Throughout the writing process I learned a lot about how to research and find reliable sources, how to integrate multimodal sources, and how to craft good arguments and counterarguments. The time spent these last ten weeks has shown me that writing can be a difficult and lengthy process, but in the end it pays off to finally turn in a completed draft that you know you put your best effort into. The following ePortfolio chronicles my writing process along with the many difficulties and breakthroughs I had in my writing.

My Composing Process                                                                  

When I initially began to look for a topic for my HCP I wasn’t too sure what I was looking for. My initial research involved topics that had pretty much already been discussed in our assigned reading of Our Kids by Robert Putnam. For the Finding a Topic assignment I just did a generic search on the topics I  thought I wanted to talk about, and to be honest, I just used the first sources that I came across that went with the topics I was “researching.” I did however use an academic search engine; I used Academic Search Complete, but really had no idea what I was looking for. At this point, my research skills were lacking, and I think that can be seen in the comments from my finding a topic assignment below.

I received these comments from Brendan after turning in the HCP Prospectus and as you can see, I had a lot of work to do. He suggested to read Ch.4 from Our Kids to get a better idea on the topics I was interested. This along with the research session and talking to Brendan afterwards, helped me choose my final topic on immigrant children's education.

In the assignment I paid little attention to the dates the sources were published, and my research topics were way too broad. I was originally looking at researching how parent’s income affects a child’s level of education or how childhood poverty affects their upward social mobility. I think the fact that I wasn’t too sure about what I wanted to talk about was reflective of my first assignment and the effort that I lacked to put into it. It wasn’t until after the first research session with the librarian, and the talk that I had after with Brendan that I began to get a better sense of researching and the topic that would become my HCP and later my AP. I took several notes during the library session and my notes can be seen below.

These are some of the notes I took during the library research session. I wrote down helpful academic search engines that I could use to research my topic of immigrant children's education. I particularly found Academic Research Complete and CQ Researcher the most helpful in my initial research.

These notes guided my research as I used these tips and strategies to find better and more relevant information. After talking with Brendan about my general topic of immigration and social mobility, I was able to narrow my research and I felt that I began to put more effort and felt more engaged with my research. I finally decided on researching immigrant children’s level of education and the affect it has on their social mobility. My initial research findings can be seen in my HCP Prospectus and I began to do more research with the comments I was given through Canvas from Brendan. I had my topic chosen, but I still found that I needed to do even more research to improve my paper and I had to find a completely different news story to introduce my topic. I had a lot of difficulty here in finding a relevant news article and decided that I would take on a new strategy when looking for one. At first I thought I had to find an academic source that gave a relevant article but I could not find anything. I decided to do a general search on Google about immigration and education; I was able to find a few articles from newspapers. As I found articles that I could possibly use, I began to save them and made webnotes on them to point out important parts that pertained to my research, below are some of the notes I made.

These are just some of the webnotes I made when trying to find a relevant article. I made note of the proponents of immigrant education and how this related to a current event. I used this note strategy on several other articles that I thought could be useful to make it easier to compare and use the best article in my paper.

After I remembered that I had this tool, picking a news story was much easier since I could compare the relevance of the issues from the notes I made. This tool also proved helpful for me later in the AP when I added to my list of sources and needed to pick out relevant information. I learned that Google is a good source to do initial research and get general ideas that I could use to search in an academic database. After I found articles on Google I was able to search up similar terms on academic search engines like CQ Researcher. I wasn’t able to get all my information from it, but it gave me ideas that steered me in a good direction for further research.

After going through the initial struggles of researching when writing my HCP, the research went a little smoother for my Advocacy Project. Because I already had most of the groundwork done, my research was much narrower since I already had a clearly defined topic. Compared to the HCP Prospectus, my AP Prospectus was more focused, and I felt more confident in what I was researching. I still had some doubts however. When writing the prospectus, I really hadn’t thought too much about feasibility which Brendan commented on through Canvas. The comments below made me doubt if my solutions were possible and it lead me to do research about the feasibility of my solutions as well as focus more on the possibility of the visa system as the most likely solution to my problem.

The comments made by Brendan made me think hard about the feasibility of my solutions. It led me to do even more research to find evidence that showed that these solutions were possible to implement.

However, this all changed because of the recent election. All my research had been based on the very hope that my solutions for immigration would be possible under a president who supported it. To my shock, the election did not go that way and I had to take the president-elect’s immigration policy into serious consideration as opposition to my proposed solutions. This can be seen in my second draft where I concede to this opposition. As you can see below, I first just mentioned prominent republican Ted Cruz as an opponent, but I then added the president-elect’s opposition to my argument.

The screenshots above show the difference between my original counterargument and the addition of the concession that Trump could completely change the feasibility of my arguments. I had to seriously consider this counter after the 2016 election. The results of the election really put a damper on my solutions and it was necessary that I made this concession.

By adding this major concession I saw how it changed the tone of my writing and it made it sound more sincere about the possibility of children not being given the chance at an education. I noticed how, even though I seemed to acknowledge a sort of defeat to my solution, it also helped to strengthen the importance of it. This major opposition also made me reevaluate the best possible solution for my problem. In the last comments I got back from Brendan, I had a realization that my first solution would be much more feasible than the second one on the visa system I was originally leaning towards.

As with the addition of the counterargument, I also had to change my conclusion because of the election. The feasibility of my second solution was much more impossible than my first. The above comments made me realize this and I changed my conclusion stating that EL Education would be more feasible, and the best solution.

In the final revision of my paper I changed my conclusion to reflect solution one as my best possible solution instead of solution two which I had before.

Revision Process

      The revision process plays a major role in my writing and allows me to expand my arguments and improve them through my instructor’s and peer’s feedback. For me, the revision process is a very important component to writing a well- rounded paper. In most cases, my revision includes changing main ideas and making conceptual changes in the beginning stages of writing as I begin to get my ideas down in writing. A major revision like this can be seen in the drafting process of my AP. When I went from the first draft to the second, there were some major additions and revisions. In the first draft I had very weak counterarguments, if any, but in the second draft I had two whole sections dedicated to counterargument.

Compared to early drafts, my second draft had whole sections dedicated to counterarguments as seen above. My first draft had almost no counterarguments (not even enough to compare here).

After the addition of the counterarguments, I looked to my peer reviewer to give feedback on them in the peer review 2.5. My peer reviewer made the comments below about my counterarguments and suggested that I find more support for the rebuttals I made.

The peer review comments above led me to go back to previous research. Luckily, I had saved a source that helped support the importance of immigrants in the economy as my peer reviewer suggested to add. I was able to add this source to my arguments, and thanks to peer review, it made my paper stronger.

After reading her comments, I went back to my saved research and found a source that I had forgotten about that happened to support the claim I was making about immigrants supporting the economy. Her comments made me go back to the research I had already done and I was able to find supporting evidence that also helped strengthen my argument.

I found that peer review also helped me in critiquing my own work as I was revising. Not only was I able to give constructive criticism to others through peer review, but I also found that I was asking myself the same types of questions I was asking others. Being able to look at other’s work made me realize the things that I needed to look for in my own work such as evidentiary support for the claims that I was making. One section I did this on was in my AP draft 2 where I looked for evidence to support my claim about the different types of funding used toward EL programs. After I wrote this section and went back to read it I realized that it was missing support for the claim I was making, so I went to do more research on funding and came up with the revision below.

From peer reviewing others papers, I found that I was asking myself the same questions I would ask others like: Why is this important? and Is there evidence that supports this? Because I was able to ask myself these same questions, I added in the section above into my paper to better support a claim I made about EL Funding. I hadn't mentioned this information until I realized that my argument was lacking.

The new evidence I found came from a report that explained the different kinds of funding for EL education and how the funding was distributed to the programs.

Rhetoric, Argumentation, and Multi-Modal Communication

At first the task of using multimodal sources in my writing seemed daunting to me because I wasn’t sure how to integrate them into my ideas. I began to notice the importance of them as I was researching and putting my ideas together; I found myself thinking about how a graph or chart would help to convey the message I was trying to get across. One of the first moments I realized this was in the second draft of my HCP. As I was revising between my first and second drafts I saw sections in my paper that could be further supported by charts that supplemented the claims I was making about the importance of immigrant education. Rather than giving my readers the numbers, I showed it to them which I think makes a greater impact than saying them. Seeing concrete evidence on a graph provided greater support for my claim that education is important for immigrant children, and I also think it gave my paper more credibility since I was citing the evidence through these multi-modal sources.

As I was writing my HCP, I realized that a graph showing the difference in immigrant and non-immigrant wages would show the importance of education. Because non-immigrants are typically educated they have better wages compared to immigrants. I found that this graph was easy to read and showed this discrepancy in education and wages.

I did however take a slight step back from my understanding of using multimodal sources when I turned in the second draft of my AP. I added in a large multimodal source that was not very readable or necessary to get my idea across about funding for EL education. Brendan pointed this out to me in his comments below.

After I read Brendan's comments about the large graphic above, I realized that it was way too big and confusing for my reader to understand. A complicated chart would deter my reader from understanding my point, I decided to delete the chart completely. I learned that a simple chart like the one I showed previously is much easier for my reader to understand.

After I read the comments and reread that section of my AP, I realized that he was right, and that the chart was not necessary. I saw that I could just summarize what the chart was saying because it didn’t really add any extra credibility or a shocking point to argument. The chart was also very large and hard to read. I saw that such a large and complex chart would deter my readers from the information I was trying to get across rather than supplement it. The huge chart was too much information that would overwhelm my readers, so I removed it and instead provided a summary of the information I wanted my readers to know.

After I got a better understanding of multimodal sources and how they strengthened my arguments, I focused more on my counterarguments. At first I just saw the counterarguments as something that addressed a possible problem with my solutions, but I learned that the counterarguments do much more. As I was constructing the counterarguments I saw how they added to my own arguments. They gave me points that I could rebut as well as concessions that I could make to show that I acknowledged my own arguments were not perfect. One part in the paper where I had to make a major concession was acknowledging the fact that the new president-elect would show fierce opposition to the visa system and education. As I stated before, I had to revise this section, and I made this concession in draft 2.5 below.

As I stated before, I had to make a major concession in my argument with regard to its feasibility and the new President-elect's immigration policy. I saw that this concession made my paper more sincere and added to my paper's credibility since I was showing that I acknowledged opposing views.

This was a major counterargument that I had to address and in doing so I feel that it added to my credibility as a writer. Because I conceded to this, it shows that I recognize the flaws in my solutions and I am able to admit those flaws to my audience. Using multimodal sources and integrating counterarguments overall helped me write a stronger paper and become a more well-rounded writer.

Transfer

      This course has taught me a lot, and looking back I can see how I have improved as a writer. I was a fairly good writer in high school and even did well in my first writing class at UCI when I took Writing 39B. Writing 39C proved much more challenging for me because I really had to analyze my arguments and my thought process, but I have ended these ten weeks with a better understanding for research and all the work that it entails. From continuous revisions to academic research, Writing 39C has given me skills that I can apply to my writing in other courses here at school and in the workplace. I know that the research skills I learned in this course will definitely help me in the Bio writing course I have to take later on, and in writing lab reports when I get into a research lab on campus. In my hopes get into medical school, I know there is a ton of new learning and research that needs to be done to succeed in classes. The skills I learned this quarter would be a great asset to my learning and will be very important in helping me delve into medical research papers and textbooks. When I read medical research I’ll know what an abstract is and its purpose, I’ll know how to organize a paper with proper headings, and I’ll know how to look for credible research. I’ll be able to do all of this along with so much more. I realize there is always still room for improvement, but the skills I have learned here will serve as my foundation for future research assignments.