Writing 39C was my first English course in college. As I succeed with A's in all my English honors and AP classes I was terrified for this class to take. I'm a hard worker and love to succeed and learn and I struggle so much in writing classes. it takes me 3-4 times to redo my essay so it can be good. Although it's okay to make mistakes during the rough draft I never know how much I still needed help. when I took AP Land and AP lit we went over a lot of how to form a thesis statement as well as analysis Rhetorical questions. I started this class not knowing what it means to write a persuasive strong claim and how to form one and know it is good. I had difficulty with this while working on the CP assignment and rewrote it time after time. I personally saw my improvement when I looked back at my very first draft. Some other problems I have as a writer would be using strong evidence. Over the past few weeks of this course, I realized that I need to use scholarly research and studies conducted by a professional in that field and not just any words of opinion will fill in and persuade the reader. In order to solve this, I ask multiple people to read over my papers and drafts and ask them what areas they saw needed more detail. Another issue I face as a writer is getting my message clear. One word can change the reader's understanding of what I am trying to say and may give them the overall idea but not my exact thoughts on it. This began as a big issue for me and so I took the time to read over my writing several times and catch as many mistakes or wordy sentences; I am aware of my improvement because now when I ask someone to read over my paper they have a better understanding of what I am saying by just reading and not questioning me on it. At first when I would revise my papers from rough draft to draft I would make little to no changes but looking at my multiple drafts for the CP assignment I changed at least 2-3 sentences in every paragraph to better meet the requirements.

    As could be understood, one of my main goals is for readers to better understand what I am saying in my writing. It was pointed out to me several times that my claims were weak and rather a fact or statement of opinion. A great thanks to my writing goes to peer editing and the advice that I am given and specific details of what I should do to each part of my papers. Office hours have also greatly improved my writing skills. I would ask questions and become aware of what I am expected to do, which is always helpful to keep in mind while writing. We were given an outline of how each paragraph should look and that has helped me become more organized in my writing. When revising my paper it is not just to change a few things but to have a noticeable difference from the draft before. Going over claims, explanations, evidence, analysis, opinion, conclusion, and transition, there are several red flags I see at each one because of the multiple different things that could be understood from my writing so I go back and make it more specific and detailed. 

       Research is the boat for any piece of writing and when using weak sources it tends to hit a rock and begin to sink. My research strongly affected my argument because it is the foundation of my papers and if I don’t have good research I have a bad paper. As mentioned earlier I started to use scholarly sources more often rather than depending on .com and .org websites. I married what kind of sources I wanted to use by giving myself a really specific idea of my topic for each paragraph and then I would find a few sources and cancel out the less informative and supportive sites. Something I learned about research is every website, news article, blog, or study could support your writing in a way but as a writer, you have to know which sources to choose from over others because you cannot always use all of them. You also don’t want to repeat the same information over and over so you have to make sure it is not the exact concept but worded differently. 

Personally, I love to have an outline for each paragraph and how it should be formatted. After that, I open a blank Google doc and write the outline 

Ex: Claim | Evidence | Analysis | Opinion | Conclusion | Transition

      I highlight each part in a different color and that is when I am ready to start doing research. I start by having a simple idea in my mind of what my first claim is. I find multiple sites and copy/paste the parts I think are beneficial to my writing. After doing that for each part of the first paragraph I began to erase things I do not think I need and then began to combine the ideas of the ones that remained and say them in my own words as best as possible. Then I fill in my opinion and make sure my claim is arguable and strong.

     I faced many challenges and obstacles, fears and discoveries. My argument definitely shifted after I read deeper facts and details about it. At first, I thought medical mistrust was due to the doctors not being racially fair and respectful but then I realized in many cases the patient can be just as bad and so we need improvement from both sides in order to solve this. Choosing examples was a big struggle because I could never decide if they strongly convey the thought I am trying to convey to the reader or if they have anything to do with what I am saying and not just the overall topic. Using quotations was not too hard for me. I tried to keep it at a decent rate and not put everything in quotations but also to include the evidence and words of professionals concerning the area I talked about. Topic sentence formation had to be a big obstacle for me because it would be a part or near my claim and so then it is read as an opinion and not an arguable matter. It took multiple revisions to fix the first few sentences of each paragraph. I definitely went through the interaction between writing and later research for some paragraphs I would write so much on my opinion and then I would go to find evidence and studies that support me and then I would realize I am not on the right track and do not have evidence to support my unstable claims and so that is when I rewrite my claims and find strong and reasonable evidence. 

     Looking at the multi-modal image this is the overall cycle I went through the same process but after receiving feedback from peers, friends, and the professor I would revise it each time and never get it exactly right but improvement is greatly visible from the various drafts. Looking at my grammar when I write I don’t worry too much about it and just try to jot everything down and then google docs fixes some spelling mistakes and grammar errors and then I would go through several other websites to get an idea of what parts are wordy and more grammar suggestions, I also have my peers to review over it when they read my drafts. The revision process greatly affected my overall argument because there were parts I completely took out and then there were areas I extended my writing on. 

        My arguments greatly developed and improved over the weeks and I am proud of the new skills I caught on to and the bad writing habits I let go of. The term “thesis” does not include everything I like about my argument because it has to be straight to the point and structured in a certain way. There were for sure pieces of my writing that I narrowed my focus to certain details and other parts that were broad and just the general issue/solutions. The big idea behind my work is to bring multiple health care issues to the reader's attention because there are issues we all know about such as implicit bias (racial discrimination) but we tend to just nod at the thought of it and not do much concerning it. Then there are also topics such as cultural factors and ways and we are not all aware of this being a problem and may not be aware of different cultures and their thoughts on medicine and how they form their decisions. My mind has undoubtedly improved during the process of writing because I myself came aware of certain issues I knew so little about or never knew.

     I have mentioned many weaknesses I have as a researcher and a writer. This includes finding the right evidence and having understandable explanations a weakness I overcame was learning to write more argumentative claims. There are many other minor weaknesses I have as a writer but those are the major ones. One strength I have and am really thankful I do is being an organized writer, from time to time it is not always neat and on point but I organize my thoughts and outline them which helps me when going through the rubric and not having to worry about forgetting a part ex the analysis, quote, conclusion, etc. 

Writing 39C has been a rigorous and fast paced course. I have always enjoyed research papers and after gaining more skills for writing a strong research paper, I have enjoyed writing a research paper even more. After completing this quarter, I'm proud and happy with the work I have done and hope to carry the writing skills I learned with me in my future classes.