Nguyen Reflections (Reflection #1)

After reading and annotating Bich Nguyen’s article I have discovered I am a critical reader. I tend to question and challenge the points an author makes, usually in an attempt to further understand the author’s premise. For this particular assignment, I felt as though I had no place to challenge such a personal experience, so my annotations strayed to understanding and extension. In the future I hope to be able to apply all of these actions to every work I annotate.

Categories Global Revision Comments (Reflection #2)

1. The first global revision I made was elaboration after the sentence “These “cliches” come from the conception that categories are simply black and white.” After being asked “how so” by prof. Center, I attached a second sentence to the thought: “This Black and white generalization is really the idea that everyone in a category either fits or doesn’t.” The term “black and white” was too general, so I made sure the reader knew that by “black and white” I was referring to the theme of fitting or not fitting in a given category with no in-between.
2. The second global critique I received was “Be more specific” highlighted on the term “good versus bad.” Once again, I had made a generalized statement with no explanation! To fix this, I deleted the statement and replaced it with “poisonous food vs safe food, predators vs hunt-able animals.” The goal of this section was to exemplify societies initial use of categories, so I feel as though being more specific was incredibly important.

First Essay Reflection #3

One thing which engaged me during the thinking demonstrated in paper 1 was being able to form opinions. I had my own positive opinions about categories when the project first began, but the articles very quickly began to show me a counter argument I had never heard. When going to work on my essay I had a mix of previous opinions and new ideas guiding my writing. I began by trying to find a middle ground between the two, but no matter how hard I tried the quotes pointed to one conclusion. I found it engaging to let the quotes and evidence guide my paper forwards as opposed to my original ideas. When I didn’t find a subject interesting I had to remind myself of its importance. Just because I don’t find something interesting, doesn’t mean it’s not important for me to understand and consider.

First Essay Strengths and Weaknesses (Reflection #4)

One thing I feel confident about is my use of language. While writing paper #1 I received numerous comments about “powerful language”. I also did well including quotes to support my claims. I received comments like “excellent quote choice” and “ Nice work bringing the sources together as well.” One thing I need to work on in my next paper is my use of punctuation. I forgot quite a few commas and misused a colon. It seems I do better with global aspects of my papers and worse with local aspects.

Reflection #5

Up to this point, the class has discussed both positive and negative aspects of empathy. Friedman pushes his readers to improve their empathy through his exercise, ““Listen carefully to someone you want to communicate with better, and choose something they said or did that you don’t like or agree with. Now imagine at least two reasons why they might have said or done that thing. Then ask the person to tell you about their experience — and don’t react emotionally to what they say.” This technique seems to be very helpful for those wanting to practice empathy. However, our second reading by Price mentions that “empathy is an illusion.” Price counters Friedman, explaining that perspective-taking is a much more logical approach to helping others. Price explains empathy as an assumed emotion; instead of being something helpful empathy is self-centered as it is assumed by the self. Empathy is supposed to help, but when we assume another person’s emotions it can quickly become problematic. Friedman is doing something good by trying to convince his readers to actively communicate. However, Price shows us that it is hard to actively communicate when using empathy.

Reflection #6

After finishing paper #2, one strength I feel confident about is my use of language. I received multiple compliments towards my “effective” and “interesting” language, which I hope to continue using in paper #3.  Most of the weaknesses I had on paper #2 came to light in my conclusion. For example, the first line of my conclusion was a repeated thesis statement from my introduction. I also summarized too heavily in my conclusion, causing me to not explain some of my concepts fully. Hopefully in paper #3 I am able to write a more compelling conclusion, which can stand as its own paragraph, instead of writing with repetition and summary. The feedback on my interview was majorly positive, with the exception of my interviewee’s volume. Unfortunately, my voice was louder than my interviewee’s voice (which was soft and quiet) making the interview sound unbalanced. Next time I will remember to seat the microphone closer to whoever is speaking, instead of next to me. Finally, while writing paper #2 I used a caveat to address the skeptic reader. I thought the addition of a caveat was useful in my paper, as it eliminated any bias in my own writing. Overall, I feel paper #2 went well and I am excited to begin paper #3

Reflection #7

After a semester of peer reviews, I feel I have greatly improved my local and global revision comments. While peer editing the first essay for ENG110, I found local revisions easier to make than the global ones. Local corrections felt “safer” and were more specific, so most of my comments were about grammar and punctuation. However, throughout the second and third papers for this class, I began to become more comfortable with making global revisions comments such as “elaborate here,” “this is vague,” and “what do you mean by this?” Annotating articles was a large part of how I learned to make global comments. Getting comfortable with responding to someone’s writing has made it easier to critique writing. Once I became comfortable with global revisions, I also began to see the importance of them. Global modifications allow the writer to see the essay the way their reader would know the piece; holes and all. This is not to say that local revisions are unnecessary; local modifications help smooth over the work and help improve the language for readers. My next step as an editor is to find a balance between global and local edits. With more practice, I will be able to edit any piece of writing effectively.

Reflection #8

I practice many aspects of composition in my daily life, in my free time I love to paint, garden, and write. This creative energy can easily be transferred to my work for school, especially for essays, podcasts, and presentations. The most obviously transferable skill is the free-flowing creativity in my personal writing. When writing an academic essay, it’s difficult to maintain the kind of free-flowing writing that is used in creative writing. Learning to write academically with the same level of passion used in creative writing can be difficult. Finding a balance between creative and factual/informative language was my biggest challenge. Similarly, painting requires a certain amount of critiques and edits which are similar to the editing process of an essay. While painting, the artist has a set image of what the finished paper should look like, and inevitably the artwork never turns out as planned. Both art and writing require a certain amount of flexibility; they are not rigid. Plants, like any academic work, need to be maintained in order to grow. While I garden I have to consider the soil, water, sunlight, and pests that will come in contact with my plants. Academic work requires the same amount of time and consideration. 

Reflection #9

After reading through reflections 1-8, I have learned a lot about who I am as a reader and writer. At the beginning of this semester, the class did a lot of reading and annotating, which significantly improved my text comprehension—annotating taught me to read critically and ask questions. This approach has helped me understand and explore my readings better, which has also transferred into my writing. Breaking down the reading allowed me to break down my ideas about the text. This provided a strong backbone for my writing and, similarly my opinions. With the help of active reading and other techniques, my writing has improved immensely over this semester. One of the other improvements to my writing was my use of caveats. By including a caveat to my paper I was able to address the skeptic reader and make my arguments stronger. Overall I feel both my reading and writing skills have improved throughout this class.

Reflection #10

When I write (in print), I tend to stray toward higher diction language and long sentences. When I finished my final paper, it was nowhere near where it needed to be to create a podcast. To edit down my essay, I first went through and made both my tone and language much more casual. This included choosing lower diction words, shortening sentences, and combining sentences. Once I finished that, I removed parts of my paper I thought were unnecessary for the podcast. For example, I removed most of my quotes and paraphrased them instead. Specifically, this made quotes from my scientific paper easier to understand. This helped me shorten my overall essay; my paragraphs went from 500 words to 100 words after paraphrasing. Finally, I found sections throughout my paper where I thought asking questions would be beneficial. I inserted questions after almost every paragraph so that my interviewee could join in on the conversation. “Writing for the ear” was difficult for me, as it’s something I’ve never done before. After every edit I made, I read my paper out loud to see how it sounded and if I needed to change anything else; inevitably, I had to change a lot. However, after all of these edits were done, I had a piece of writing that made all of the points from my original essay while sounding more pleasing to the ear.