My Best Work

English 

ENGL 1010 Introduction to Writing 

 Major Works Reflection

            The target audience for all three of my revised works is my fellow classmates and teacher.  It’s been extremely helpful to have people perform peer reviews on my assignments.  The feedback has made me look deeper into my works, with another pair of eyes if you will, to recognize underlying meanings and to give me a chance to learn from my mistakes.  I hope my newly acquired use of the rhetorical triangle has been useful in persuading my fellow classmates to find my works believable and educational.

The purpose in writing these three major works was not only to complete the assignments given to me, but to learn more about certain topics I wouldn’t go out and learn about on my own.  Through research of the varying issues I quickly became more aware of the impact of what I was studying.  For example, it was beneficial to write about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because I learned so much more about him as a person and didn’t focus on the famous one-liners of his speeches that many people either misquote or don’t understand.  These assignments have also been great learning tools for my classmates and me.  I feel like my writing has improved tremendously in the last few months as well as my research skills and the many methods by which knowledge is provided for public use.

The revisions I made to all three of my works were typically based around the fact that I’m fairly new to writing in a rhetorical format so I slipped into old habits and just did an analysis of the material at hand.  In my Visual Rhetoric Analysis I did research on the healthcare system in the U.S. and used those findings as filler, where I was supposed to have analyzed the ways the cartoonist used logos, pathos and ethos to engulf his audience in his work.  Even though I thought the initial paper was well written, the peer reviews and the teacher’s feedback helped me to see the cracks in my writing and allowed me to acknowledge I did not fulfill the prompt and tended to discuss tangents of the article and its author.  The revisions I made to the political cartoon analysis concerning healthcare showed me how important proofreading is when compiling research and finalizing a draft whether it is for a teacher, another student, or even for me.

The peer review task is a stressful yet rewarding process.  It is hard to critique a classmate’s work when you may be on the same level as them mentally.  I used to think that work was reserved for the teacher because they are far more educated than their students for the most part.  I understand the value of peer reviews now that I’ve partaken in the experience.  I always want to give pointers that are helpful, but sometimes it’s hard to find anything wrong and I think the author of the paper I am reviewing has far surpassed my ability to write.  Or worse yet, when there are many grammatical errors I don’t want to cause them grief and hurt their feelings by labeling every mistake.  I hope my peers realize that my reviews stem from wanting to clarify the passage or grammar and we are all in the same class to learn and become better writers.

Taking this English class has made me a more confident person.  I feel like I can chime in on conversations about world events and political affairs due to the research I’ve performed for my papers.  Now that I have a grasp of the rhetorical writing process I can incorporate that in my speech as well and use rhetoric in a more educated manner than before.  Learning new methodologies of writing and expanding my general thought processes have been an amazing experience and I’m glad my peers have been there with me every step of the way.