Reflecting on Writing 39B

            Writing academically will, no doubt, be vital throughout my academic and professional career. Learning the process of how to write effectively for an academic audience has been one of the main focuses of Writing 39B, which has strengthened my ability to write and recognize mistakes within my own work. I learned that there are several steps that must be followed for my writing to be effective in its finished product. The Anteaters Guide to Reading and Writing calls these steps “composing processes.” These processes aim to “conceptualize, develop, and finalize projects” (Loren Eason et al. 9). Through the development of several essays and projects that I created throughout the quarter, I can see that I follow these composing processes and learn to create work that is effective in conveying a message to an audience. Comparing my “Red Wind” review to my rhetoric in practice project shows the improvement of my awareness of the audience. The development of my rhetorical analysis and RIP (rhetoric in practice) essay also shows effective rhetoric and overall improvement within my writing. Taking this class has increased my ability to write academically, which can be seen through my growing ability to recognize audiences and use effective rhetoric within my writing.

            During this course, the class was tasked two different times to independently create a piece of work that reflects our understanding of audience awareness and ability to incorporate our genre of noir. One of these projects was to create an online film review for “Red Wind” by Raymond Chandler. They layout of my review can be seen here:

Although some components of the writing were good, the rest of the review was very bland. It lacked a noir-like feel and it did not utilize effective rhetoric that appeals to an audience who would search for a noir movie. In addition to this, I was not straight forward, and one of Professor Ramon’s comments even says to “sell the first line to the audience.” After understanding what I did wrong, I effectively appealed to a specific audience while representing noir through my rhetoric in practice project. The layout is shown below, however, you can see my full project here.

Compared to the “Red Wind” review, I pay a lot more attention to detail to the intended audience, which was stressed all quarter. One can see that my ability to understand how to link the genre of noir to a target audience improved drastically from one project to another. Prior to this class, I never thought about the audience when writing and how they would react to certain rhetorical choices. I now read my writing and view my work from two different viewpoints: from my own and from the audience’s. The comments I received from Professor Ramon as well as self-refection has turned what was previously a weakness into a strength, which will be carried with me throughout my academic endeavors.

            Other strengths and weaknesses can be seen within the drafting of my Rhetorical Analysis, which can be found here. In this essay, I successfully link hardboiled narration in noir to the underlying beliefs that society possesses. My thesis provides this idea, as shown below:

Reflection on my thesis can be found here. Rather than reflecting again on my thesis, I wish to point out whether my essay reflected this thesis thoroughly. For most of the essay, I effectively linked the points I made to my thesis, which is one aspect of my writing that I am usually strong with. However, there was one paragraph that goes slightly off topic, as can be seen here:

After reviewing the essay, I noticed this mistake. This shows the importance of assignments such as this one, because reflecting on my own writing prevents future mistakes like this from happening, especially for writing done during whatever profession I obtain in the future.  I now know how easy it is to go off topic, and how doing so reduces the quality of the paper and signifies weakness within my writing. This class has helped identify mistakes such as this one, which will eventually prevent them from happening again in the future.

            Another thing I learned in Writing 39B that I am now very efficient at doing is providing analysis of a source, even when the source is not a conventional quote. In my RIP (rhetoric in practice) essay, I used my own project as a source. A lot of the analysis I provided was in response to specific use of imaging, layout, or slang that were present throughout my project, which was a Buzzfeed quiz that linked noir to a younger audience. For example, I provided commentary on a screenshot of the header of the website, which can be seen below:

Similar to the analysis of a regular quotation, I had two separate groups of analysis; one that provided an in-depth, close analysis of the text (or image) within the source and another analysis commenting on how it relates to the overall point of the essay (the thesis). Prior to this class, I had not ever analyzed an image within a formal essay. However, I realize that doing so is very effective because I will be able to incorporate more unique sources into future academic essays, which could improve my credibility as a writer. This class established the importance of being able to analyze a variety of different sources. Now, when I must provide analysis of unique sources, I will know how and where to start, thus establishing my strength as an academic writer.

            Going into this class, I expected to write essays on random prompts and turn them in for individual grades. I was surprised to see that the class focused more on learning the fundamentals of academic writing, applying these concepts, then reflecting on them within our own writing. Self-reflecting enabled me to realize my strengths and weaknesses, and how some of my weaknesses developed into a deeper understanding of academic writing. Although the specific genre that was assigned to the class was not the focus, it was still very interesting learning about noir and the conventions it adheres to. It became apparent to me, only recently, that this class was very beneficial because it introduced me to the idea of reflecting on my own writing in depth. Whether it be searching for inconsistencies within my paragraphs or having awareness of the audience, Writing 39B reshaped the way I analyze my own writing, thus enhancing my overall ability to convey my ideas.