Reflective Essay Rough Draft

Delaney Worrix

Johnathan Maxey

English 1001

13, April 2020

Reflective Essay Rough Draft

Some things I struggled with throughout this course was some of the topics we had to work with. Some of the topics were challenging and for me it was hard to work with. One other thing I struggled with during this course is switching to online. Switching to online only class got me somewhat off track due to not being able to talk in person to get face to face feedback. These issues were challenging due to not being able to get an immediate response back if I had a question. While we are doing everything online, communication can be hard, and we won’t get that immediate response.  As far as struggling with the topics that was hard because if you don’t know much of the topic or you don’t understand the topic you cannot write a paper. With the problems that I have struggled with for this semester it defiantly impacted my work. There are ways it was impacted in a good way and bad way. Some ways it was good is having everything online you can get it done on your own time. One bad thing that impacted me was not being able to talk in person and emailing response times were too long of a wait sometimes, meaning I would figure it out before I got an emailed response back. I can’t really solve my online problems since it is mandatory that all school are currently online. As far as me struggling with the topics to resolve this issue I could ask more questions and read more information on the certain topic. During this class some writing skills I have improved on is citations. I used to struggle with my works cited pages, but during this class I have figured out what I was doing wrong and fixed it. As a writer I believe some of my strong suits are finding good information on research topics. I think I find good credible sources that are very helpful to my essay. I think this is my strength because I have the patience to sit and scroll through lots of articles to find the right information for a certain essay. this strength has been shown in my exploratory essay. we had to use five different types of articles and I feel I did good working with what I had to.

While doing the rhetorical analysis paper I learned that this type of writing is meant to be informative and is trying to persuade you with the writing. This differs from different writing because it was us analyzing someone else’s work and trying to understand what the author means with their writing. Analysis plays other rolls in college writing because we are not always just analyzing them, but we do lots of research along with it. In this article that we had to read, I struggled with comprehending some of the language because it’s not used in our everyday conversations and it is meant for college professors. Some things I did well with this essay is picking out parts of it and trying to understand what they actually mean. 

While writing the exploratory essay I have learned more information about my future career. It was very interesting to see what all goes on in this field and it showed me that this job is really important. I also learned a few things that I did not know prior to writing this.  This is different from other forms of writing because when writing you are focused on one specific career and you are finding specific information regarding the career. It also allows others to get an idea of what the field you’re going into is like. It was pretty easy for me not to take a position while writing this because some facts I found I did not even know myself before doing all the research. The exploratory essay can play other roles in college writing such as an informative paper, they are similar because you are finding and stating facts about a certain area. I struggled with finding a few of my questions to get answers for but later on found that it will vary job to job. While writing this I feel I did pretty good with my word choices and explaining some of the things stated in my essay. Overall, I feel I did pretty decent with it.

While writing this essay I learned more information about my topic like is it safe and the health problems it could create.  I also learned how to cite my sources correctly. This differs from other writing because you are looking at the pros and cons and finding a solution for the problem it is creating.  To find this information for my topic it was quite difficult. It was difficult because my topic is too broad. I was trying to find out ways to protect someone better from radiation and there was not much out there since they already have lead aprons. It was not hard to stick with one side only. I found it was easier since I knew more information on that side of the topic. This plays another roll in other college writing because it is finding information about certain issues and finding support to back up claims you are fighting. I struggled with the refutation. it was somewhat vague to me. I also struggled with making my paper the length required the 8- 10 pages just because I’m not finding enough information. Also, I struggled with finding some reliable sources, with this topic of mine being so broad it was hard to find a solution that I can work with. I also struggled with syllogism part I did not understand the definition of a syllogism all that much to begin with. I think in this essay I did okay on my conclusion and that’s not really much but that’s my only strong suit from this.

This project was somewhat hard for me to comprehend just because it is so vague. It is mainly just made up of pictures, and very few words. This project differs from other forms of writing because it’s a solution I am proposing and it’s a PowerPoint. The PowerPoint is mostly pictures so that is also a difference from other writings we have done. For me it was hard to find media because my topic is a broad category. There is a lot of things in my topic. Also, the videos were all over the time limit but none of them really described what I was looking for. I struggled with this entire project. It was a hard topic for me to cover using mostly just pictures. I struggled because I needed to see some examples and it is just a vague description on what to really do. I believe I did good with the information I had to work with.

After completing this course, I wish I could have done my rhetorical analysis paper better. I struggled with that paper because the topic was hard for me understand. Also, while doing this paper I had a hard time with the wording since it was written in a different time frame. After completing this course, I would say my exploratory paper is the one paper I am most proud of. I believe that I put in good work for the exploratory essay and it was easier for me than the rest of the things we have written. My assignments in this class reflected on other things I will be doing in other English classes in the future. My knowledge from this course that I can use in other classes is how to find good sources for writing papers, along with how to make my works cited page formatted correctly. My advice for someone taking this course would be to make sure you take your time on these papers. Don’t wait until a few hours before they are due, that will create more work for you in the end during your revision process.