As I am writing this, it is currently the last week of instruction for this school year. Coming into college, I had no clue how anything would be like. When I say "anything," I mean EVERYTHING. I had no clue how it would be sharing a dorm with 3 other people, I had no clue how I would make friends, and I had no clue how the rigor of my classes would be. Luckily, the social aspect of college turned out to be fine; I learned how to coexist with 3 random people and also made a bunch of friends throughout my first year. The last issue, however, I still struggle with. 

I signed up for Writing 39C: Argument and Research very last minute because I only had 13 units and wanted to have more. I was under the impression that Writing 39C was the best choice for this quarter because I thought it would just be me googling a topic and writing some paragraphs for a completion grade. This was definitely not the case.

Like the rest of my classes, this class also happened to be rigorous and demanded the same amount of time, if not more. This made me panic at first. How was I going to balance all my other classes with a class that demands so much time of research and crafting? What I didn't know then was that the articles assigned for readings and the comments left on my pre-writings and rough drafts would ultimately help me hone my writing abilities. Thanks to Writing 39C, my abilities to write an argumentative paper that properly conveys my ideas and analyzes issues have gotten much better.

Transferring What I Know

In hindsight, most of my experiences in writing have always been mediocre and definitely did not prepare me for the level of research this class wanted. Most of my high school classes were literature based classes in which we analyzed fictional work and the literary devices the author chose, which is a completely different skill set. Moreover, instead of taking Writing 39B, I took Human 1AS which is also very heavy in analyzation of fictional work. So, being completely honest, I did not know how to even do a proper google and concise google search before this class. Nor did I know what types of sources the professor would expect me to have in my papers. For example, I thought only scholarly sources would be accepted in academic writing, but now I know this is wrong and popular sources can also be used (and even encouraged!) This is because popular sources are written for a very generalized audience who do not have much experience with the topics they talk about, which helps set grounds in a paper. 

Given that this is the first non-fiction writing class that I have taken, I feel that my initial confusion on what types of sources would be acceptable for my essays is understandable, but now I understand that I was completely wrong. In fact, I came to the understanding that papers that solely rely on academic and scholarly sources do not consider the fact that the audience, although capable of understanding the material, is not a professional in what these writers are arguing for. This means that popular sources are much easier for the audience to grasp which ultimately makes the paper more persuasive. 

Another valuable idea introduced to me in Writing 39C is multimodality. Before this class, I have never written an essay in which pictures and diagrams were needed. In addition, coming into the class I was confused as to why the projects required them. It almost felt childish and elementary to me. Then, however, I actually started writing my Context Project. I realized quickly that there are many instances in which a photo or diagram convey the message that I am trying to get across to the audience more efficiently compared to a dense paragraph. This is especially true in the case for our Context Project because of the word limit. Had I tried putting the diagrams in words instead, I would have wasted a lot of words but I didn't have to thanks to the multimodality aspect of it!

Fig. 1 From my Context Project.

As seen above, my paper included a picture of a woman posing two different ways: one relaxed and one sucking in her stomach. I used this photo to show proof of how on Instagram, users portray themselves in order to appear as good as possible, but we as the users must understand that social media is fiction. The photo added evidence in my paper in a better way than me just describing it and further enhanced my paper, which is something that had never occurred to me before this class!

Composing Project:

Before, I would start each essay trying to write my introduction and go from there. This strategy in my previous classes has worked out for me. However, for both my Context and Advocacy projects, I tried writing body paragraphs first and then an introduction and I found that it worked out much better for me. I think this is because if I write body paragraphs first, I have a better understanding of exactly what I am arguing for. 

Fig. 2 The first paragraph I wrote for my Context Project.

Had I done the opposite and written the introduction paragraph first, I feel that my introduction paragraph would not fully capture exactly what I intend to argue. So by doing this, I was making sure that my argument remained concise and coherent in order to sound more persuasive.

Revision

Hardly any sentence of my CP rough draft made it to my final draft. This, of course, means that it went through heavy revision before I turned it in. For example, this is an excerpt from my CP rough draft versus the same excerpt in my final draft:

Fig 3. An excerpt from my CP rough draft.

And my final draft:

Fig. 4 The same paragraph in my final draft of my CP

The main difference between my rough and final draft is that in my rough draft there tends to be much less evidence and quotes. This is usually because for my rough draft, I try to recall what I have read previously, but I usually cannot remember where it was from. So, I put my ideas in and mark in my notes that I need to add evidence for those paragraphs eventually. Usually, it works out, as when I am scrolling through my sources for other parts I eventually stumble upon it. Another difference between my rough draft and final draft is that my rough drafts tend to be much more informal compared to my final draft which ties back to me just typing my ideas onto the page and later reorganizing it.

When presenting my rough draft to others, they are usually very aware by the first few paragraphs that my essay is a work in progress.

Fig 5. A comment left by my professor on my rough draft

My professor pointed out how I would mention ideas but not elaborate and truly explain HOW my evidence contributes to my thesis. Once he pointed this out, I tried my best to fix this wherever I saw fit. Because of this, my points in argumentation, organization, and thesis on the rubric went up!

Of course, when I write I have a tendency to always think that my ideas are correct and no one else's ideas compare. This however, had to change with this class, as my classmates, my friends, and my professor all had very insightful and helpful things to add onto my writing which got me to do well in the class!

Conclusion

Writing is a very important skill to have. I am very grateful to have taken this class to practice and hone my writing skills in order to be prepared for other classes and projects that require me to write.