Research:

            This quarter one of the largest skills I learned was how to research better. I learned how to better my research by using Google as a local search and then Google scholar to narrow my searches. And then as I find better articles I use that as a basis for sources, by seeing which other articles cited that source. I learned how to narrow my searches to find more specified articles for what I was looking for. Looking at this specified research also led me to different paths of causes and solutions, which I hadn’t discovered.

Writing Process:

            As for my writing process before, I would normally just write to get my thoughts out and then finding evidence to better support my arguments and then continually revising those drafts. But for this paper, I found that it was better to do some general research on a regular search engine like Google and then writing a draft, just based on the general research I did. As you can see in the first draft of my Advocacy Project, there are no quotes in it at all. After doing basic skeletal research, I just wrote a draft to get my thoughts out and to get a feel for the direction I wanted to take my paper. This helps me with outlining the paper, so that I know the structure and organization of my paper.

            Then after that I write my first draft, I go into more detailed research, searching for the causes of my problem and the effects it has had on people so far. As I do this research, I compile a list of different quotes that could potentially be useful when writing my next draft. By compiling this list, it has helped me look at all my research overall, and it makes it easier for me to organize different paragraphs with different quotes. After completing my research I write my next draft and after that I go back to researching if I feel like my paper is still lacking evidence, otherwise, I would revise that draft until I think it’s done. In the case of my Advocacy Project, my second draft does have more a little more evidence and my works cited does show the research I did, but the research was not detailed enough for me to have enough evidence to confidently write my paper. Between my second and third draft, I did a lot more research using the new methods I had learned, by being more specific and looking at the different articles that cited the article that I found particularly useful. By doing this, I was able to find more useful sources to help support my claims.

            I also found that by researching and then compiling a list of quotes, it made it easier to outline the paper. This made is easier for me to organize the paper, selecting the order of my claims and then selecting the evidence that I needed to support to claims. Compared to the HCP, I feel that I was much more organized in the AP. In the HCP I also compiled a list of quotes, but I did so in a much less effective way because my research was less effective. In both the papers, I used similar writing processes but the research made a big difference in the final products. I think that by researching and writing at the same time, I was able to develop my paper as I researched and I was able to find evidence for aspects I was lacking in. This also affected the logical order of my paper because as I thought one topic was completely separate from another, that topic was actually a sub topic of my following topic, so I had to change the order of my paragraphs.

Rhetoric, Argumentation, and Multi-modal Communication:

           Through the Historical Conversations Project and the Advocacy Project, I realized that argumentation and persuasion is very fragile. In order to persuade someone, every detail matters. However, I believe that the order of the paragraphs, the structure of the paper matters the most when it comes to effectively persuading the reader. Everything must be placed in clear logical order, taking the reader through, each step of the way to persuade them into believing in the argument, or siding with the argument.

            I also learned that multi-modality is really important. Pictures or videos, more so than sometimes words, are really effective in persuading the reader because multi-modality gives the reader a visual of the impact of something. Multi-modality can very easily be tailored to appealing to a reader’s emotions. Selecting different images and placing them throughout the paper would make the reader more soft-hearted and after seeing the effects, not just imagining it, it would make them believe the adverse effects of your problem.

            Not only did I learn that the use of multi-modality is really important, I learned that I must be really specific and peculiar of the images I put. I must make sure that the images are real and genuine, no just stock photos, which are staged photos. Using stock photos would defeat the whole purpose of using an image. Since it’s not real, my reader will know that and it will only deter them from being persuaded. However, using images of actual victims or a graph per-say would be really effective at persuading the reader. The image of actual victims connects my arguments with a face; while describing the tragic effects of a problem, by seeing who is affected, it greatly appeals to the reader’s emotions as they might start to feel bad. A graph is effective when there’s data and statistics give. It gives the numbers a larger impact as they can now easily see, read, and comprehend the different statistics you provide and it makes the information you give much more believable.

Revision:

           To me, revision is really important. Since my writing process consists of me literally writing to write, without any real hard evidence, revising what really improves my writing. For me my revision process, after I feel like I wrote a pretty solid draft, consists of me looking at every sentence making sure that it is not awkward (i.e. making sure that the grammar is correct) and making sure that the sentence fits and contributes to the flow of the paragraph and paper. After going through each sentence, I read the paper again to make sure that the flow and grammar is ok and then I turn it in. To me I feel that the revision process plays a large part in discovering and generating arguments especially with the Advocacy Project. Because in the Advocacy Project we researched and wrote at the same time, I developed some claims for different paragraphs as I did more research. This then would affect the structure and flow of my paper.

           I know for a fact that I benefited a lot from the one on one conferences. No matter which draft I wrote or was in the process of writing, the one on one conferences allowed me to ask the questions I needed to ask and to get help and advice tailored to my needs and my writing—not the general tips that would help the overall class but may not necessarily address my specific problems. I was able to take in the advice and criticism given by you to fix my writing to improving it.  And after I fix it, I scheduled for another appointment to make sure that I had fixed the issues correctly and so my paper would be critiqued again. I would then take in the advice was given to me and again revise my paper based on that. From the conferences, I fixed the topic sentences in each of my paragraphs. I also broke up the paragraphs that didn’t just contain one idea or argument. Also I reorganized the presentation of my solution. Before I had it so that I talked about video games as a viable solution to medical malpractice and then I went on talking about reforming our health care system. After receiving advice to change that so that it flows better, I first wrote about reforming the health care system and then sub claims of how the healthcare system can be reformed. I included implementing video games as one of the sub-claims/sub-solutions to preventing and lowering medical malpractice.

           I benefited from writing multiple drafts because writing multiple drafts allowed me to organize and reorganize my thoughts and arguments, it also allowed me to add and remove evidence that I needed or did not need, and it allowed me to check my grammar in the paper as well as the flow and logical order of it. This allowed me to improve my writing, because the more drafts I wrote, the more I was able to tweak and change aspects of my paper that did not fit in.

Transfer:

            So far, I haven’t taken any other classes that require me to write researched based writing or composition based writing. But when I do, I intend on implementing the skills I learned in the 39 series to effectively write my paper. From Writing 37, I learned how to effectively analyze text, looking for important details, and different motifs the author uses to convey their argument. I also developed my writing process where I write multiple drafts and then I revise and improve upon it. From Writing 39C, I greatly improved my research skills and my writing process. From both of these classes I learned different approaches to different types of writing. But the largest thing I learned from both of these classes is that revision is vital to writing a good paper. Simply writing one draft is not sufficient to creating a effective and persuasive paper. In Writing 37, I learned to first just read the text, write a rough first draft, and then go back and analyze the text to find the evidence to support my claims whereas in 39C, I learned to first do a general popular search on my topic, then write a draft, and then go into more detailed research, compiling all my evidence, and then writing a more solid draft. After writing that draft, I would continually revise the paper until I think it’s good. While in both classes, I have fairly similar approaches the skills used in both approaches are very different. I think overall, I have a very similar approach to my writing assignments. I first scope and get the overall feel of the text, topic, and my ideas and arguments. Then I go into detail researching and writing and revising my drafts.

            Overall, I think my writing improved the most in Writing 39C. I learned many new skills, which I did not know before, like the use of multi-modality and how to effectively research—like looking at the different articles that cited the article that I found particularly good and useful. I also learned better techniques in revising my paper, like writing out each topic sentence and then seeing if it matches with the rest of paragraph. This really taught me how to control my ideas within paragraphs throughout my paper.