The reflective introduction will highlight my central claim: that this class has made me a more skillful and persuasive academic writer and researcher both inside, and outside of the class through the use of multimodality and writing exercises. You will see this through hyperlinks that direct you throughout different parts of the ePortfolio.
Transferring What I Know
Writing in an academic context:
Have you applied what you learned in the WR 39 series to writing assignments in other classes?
I applied what I learned in Writing 37 and 39C on doing research, finding evidence, and using the “Point, Evidence, Explanation” structure to support my claims when I write my lab reports in Chemistry 1LE, a required chemistry lab course for engineering students. For example, we had to make a particular claim about the results of a certain experiment, and substantiate that claim with evidence and a justification. The P.E.E. format from the 39 series really helped me out when I had to write a report on Chemistry Rate Laws.
Have other classes and assignments influenced your writing process; if so, which ones?
In Writing 37 I learned about the rhetorical situation, how to metacognitively analyze a text, and using my analysis to integrate it into my text. My metacognition from Writing 37 was utilized because I summarized Crutzen's and Chakrabarty's texts while also taking notes on Parrika's Geology of Media. These notes were quoted in my CP Essay, with Crutzen's and Chakrabarty's texts being mentioned. What I learned in Writing 37 that was also applied in Writing 39C was the rhetorical situation. The rhetorical appeal I had to make in this course was to my audience, Southern Californians. While I did not go into detail on my audience in the Contexts Project (CP), this was especially important in the Advocacy Project (AP). I attempted to link Egypt’s Aswan Dam water crisis with California’s drought situation with Lake Powell’s water levels behind the Hoover Dam below critical levels in my AP essay. This had an impact on my audience to consider Egypt as a testbed of strategies for Californians to capitalize on: you can see the difference between my AP Revision Draft (page 1) and Final Draft (page 1) on the AP titles, that attempted to cross-compare Egypt with California.
CEE 81A, a Civil Engineering class that I took alongside Writing 39C, had a great impact on my writing process. I learned a lot about the engineering process of building the Hoover Dam through videos we had to watch in class, so I was able to connect the Nile’s Aswan Dam situation to the Hoover Dam and Lake Powell’s impacts on the Californian drought and water crises.
Writing in a course about “Techno-ecologies of the Anthropocene”:
How did this course’s theme shape your sense of your writing and research in the course?
The course theme gave me a direction because I was able to direct my research on a particular “anthropogenic” (human-caused) problem. However, it also gave the specificity required for me to investigate problems and solutions related to “techno-ecologies”. When we were required to watch videos on the "Anthropocene: The Human Epoch" movie and write a reflection about it, I interpreted "techno-ecologies" to be problems that are caused by man’s technological means that have an impact on the local ecologies of a specific site. I started out in my CP Prewriting Exercise wanting to investigate Egypt’s relationship with water in particular, as I had initially heard about research relating to the Qattara Depression Project, a theoretical project dedicated to geoengineering Egypt’s desert climate by bringing in seawater from the Mediterranean. However, because the research was mostly theoretical, my research on the CP rewrite shifted towards Egypt’s Aswan High Dam, and its impacts on the Nile River Delta region. I was able to write about the technological and economic marvels of the Dam, but how that came at the detriment of the local Nile Delta river ecology.
Your Composing Process
How do you go about integrating various kinds of sources into your work?
I relied on writing exercises to ensure the diversity of sources in my work. In the writing exercise “Taking a Position on the Anthropocene” for the CP, I was told to include sources like a Google Earth screenshot of my site, an article on my topic in the New York Times, books from UCI libraries, a source referenced in the book, and a traditional/indigenous sources.
I also sifted through existing sources to select graphs, diagrams, and supporting images to add to my essay. This allowed me to avoid overciting and using a large number of unnecessary sources, but to use my current sources to their full potential. This was particularly helpful in the Final AP essay, where I used an image of indigenous Nubians protesting from an indigenous source that I quoted. I also used images of dying coral reefs from existing desalination plants in Egypt from a source I had quoted about brine discharge from existing desalination plants along Egypt’s Red Sea. This allowed me to ensure a good mix of sources, both written and verbal.
How have you become more skillful and able to control your presentation of evidence and integrate various pieces of evidence into a coherent and meaningful thesis?
I ensured that my thesis only had visual and written sources that were actually relevant to the essay’s central arguments. There were sources in the AP that was there but not actually discussed in the essay. For example, in the AP I talked about the need for strategic water management and water diversification due to the Ethiopian Dam but referenced a visual source about projected water levels of the Aswan Dam. I did not reference this in the essay in writing and was not to the central argument about the need for “status-quo” solutions like water diversification through desalination. The source did not talk about the solutions, only the problem, so it was a repeat of the CP that had to be eliminated. You can see this in AP Revision Draft (page 10) and final drafts
Rhetoric, Argumentation, & Multimodal Communication
How and why did you use various arguments and counter-arguments and numerous and different sources to strengthen your claims?
I followed the “Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis” formats for both the CP and AP essays.
For the CP, my thesis argued that the Dam is a problem because of the sociocultural, environmental, and political impacts that it has had for the Dam. My counterclaim or antithesis was the economic benefits for the Dam’s users downstream that have fueled the local industries due to energy production and allowed the agricultural activity to expand. In the synthesis (Page 8, Revision Draft), I said that the Dam has positive and negative impacts, so potential solutions must address those who benefit economically from the Dam.
In the AP, my I used the same structure, but narrowed it down to each body paragraph. I first started by stating the problem, outlining inside and outside the box solutions, and evaluating each status-quo solution with praise/thesis and also criticism/antithesis as seen in my AP outline. This was followed by a synthesis of the next possible steps for Egyptians to take based on the thesis/antithesis analysis, and what Californians can learn.
Overall, the “Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis” helped me to strengthen my claims because I can consider both sides of the argument in a balanced manner. The audience can also see the progression of my thoughts which serves to strengthen my thesis and my essay as a whole as they can better see how I have evaluated different aspects of my thesis.
What role did multimodal communication play in your efforts to create persuasive and convincing compositions?
In the CP, I used images of the cultural heritage and hieroglyphics downstream from the Dam being destroyed through waterlogging from hyper-agricultural activities along the Nile. I also used a map of my site (the Nile Delta region with location markers of the Dams). Data visualizations of erosion along the Delta, and charts and graphs were also used to demonstrate the positive and negative anthropogenic impacts of the Dam as seen throughout the CP First Draft.
For the AP essay, I apart from using images and data visualizations like the protesting Nubians and coral reefs previously discussed, I experimented with an epigraph by Toby Wilkinson called "Without the Nile, there is no Egypt". I also embedded a link to my audio/visual prospectus presentation and abstract into my final AP essay.
It was persuasive because the images of hieroglyphs being chipped away, and indigenous Nubians protesting, and being chipped away were powerful representations of cultural heritage being destroyed by the Dam. Data visualizations and representations were also powerful because they allowed the audience to visualize the Dam’s impact in a data-oriented manner, by combining visual and numerical elements succinctly. Multimodal epigraphs, audio presentations, and abstracts also made my AP essay interactive and more engaging to technology-oriented audiences.
Revision & Writing Community
Describe your revision process. Explain and analyze the types of revisions that you tend to make
I had three phases to my revision, with common types of revisions in each phase consistent throughout both essays: exercises, outlines, and drafting. The exercises were selecting sources to be used in my central argument, and working on the theoretical structure/thesis. The outlines served as the bridge between the drafts and the exercises, by organizing disjointed research in paragraphs. The first draft was patchwork writing and putting together my various sources from the writing exercises and prospectus into a rough essay format. The revision draft was about taking comments from my first draft from the instructor and improving it to have my peers look and comment on it. The final draft was mostly quick fixes on grammatical errors, presentation, and formatting.
Click on the links below to see the process.
CP: Exercises (Prewrite, Prospectus, Taking Position) => Bridging Outline => Drafts (1st, Revision, Final)
AP: Exercises (Warmup, Guided Research, Prospectus) => Bridging Outline => Drafts (1st, Revision, Final)
Explain how you benefited from feedback from your teacher and from your peers in workshops, presentations, and/or conferences.
I benefited from required AP peer and CP peer feedback because I got a reminder from my feedback partner Justin Cerda, who wrote an essay about the Los Angeles River, to properly format my essay like double-spacing. His positive feedback on good material in both essays also influenced my decision to keep those sections. Reading his LA River essay also gave me reminders to analyze material deeply, not superficially. I also had two private Zoom meetings with my instructor about the theoretical structure of the AP essay (where she recommended I have a central focus like the "status-quo") and I also emailed her about how to properly format figures in MLA. Finally, I also benefitted from my instructor's comments on my CP First Draft where she recommended I add more historical context about the Dam's construction. I incorporated these comments into my Revision Drafts and allowed for a more well-rounded CP.