Self Reflective Evaluation

TO: Jennifer Stewart, Instructor
FROM: Uzoma Albert, Student
DATE: May 6, 2009
SUBJECT: W233 Reflective Evaluation Assignment

The purpose of this memo is to argue that having taken Intermediate Expository Writing and acquired the knowledge to write with an academic audience in mind. Writing is like a destination, and in order to get to the final destination one must embark on a journey. However, before a journey is started necessary research has to be done to determine the purpose of the journey, the cost of the journey, the desired final destination and what one hopes to accomplish through that journey. If these requirements are not met before a journey is undertaken, one will encounter frustrations, and potentially get lost. In writing, passing information accurately to the target audience is the final destination for a writer.
Rhetorical Knowledge
It is important where one’s purpose as a writer. In other words are you writing to inform or entertain etc, after this has been done it is necessary to select a subject topic which is to be presented to the audience. For this memo the topic is “Writing is a Journey”. It is necessary to develop a thesis statement or sentence, which is something that would be symbolic to the yellow brick road which a reader can stay, focused on in order to still keep the subject in mind while embarking on the journey to the final destination; which is what you want your audience to take away from your writing. My stance in this memo is that this class ENG W233 is a very important one that every student should take in order to help them become aware of the intricacies of writing in any given genre and with various audiences in mind. By taking a stance the first message being sent out to my audience is;
• This is what I believe
• This is why I’m taking my position on what I believe
• And this is what I want you as a reader to take away from it.

It is important to understand one’s target audience in relation to the subject, because this will help in determining the appropriate genre(s) to apply in appealing to them. Assuming my target audience is a group of medical students and I wanted them to understand why drugs and alcohol shouldn’t mix. I would be better off using a descriptive and persuasive genre since the topic is a very serious one as opposed to a topic on entertainment. By applying this genre this will give the students a more detailed and descriptive information which should help them understand the seriousness of the issue and make an informed decision to apply what they have just read. It is also important to apply other genres within the major genre. As it can serves purposes that can be likened to the effect spice would have on food. With the example of drugs and alcohol for the medical students, it may be necessary periodically add this spices so as to help the reader not get bored etc.
Critical Thinking
In the ENG W233 class assigned reading from selected text books was necessary as a form of example for students to see the different aspects of writing. In these text books information such as identifying the different parts of the rhetoric such as audience, genre, stance, organization, tone and style etc were part of the exercise. Another part of the exercise is to see how the different writers incorporated this rhetoric in their writing styles and how their choices could have impacted their audience. By identifying these things in the text book it makes one become a conscious writer. It also gives the student writer the chance to borrow, and incorporate ideas without losing their sense of originality and direction. One important thing mentioned in one of these textbooks that students should know is to keep an open mind so as to see where the writer is coming from and where they are headed in their writing. This is important because developing a bias could affect one as a writer and turn off the audience.
Processes
In the class we had an exercise that was referred to as the twelfth roll. Initially, I didn’t understand what taking different pictures of the same subject had to do with writing a paper. As the process continued I realized that in writing it was important to start from general and then narrow down to a specific topic. The importance of that exercise was to increase our familiarity with the subject and the details that involve that subject. For example my subject on the twelfth roll exercise was a tree. I realized that to write about that tree lots of things can be considered such as the age of the tree, its location and purpose, the patterns on the tree and what causes them, the leaves, its color etc. In writing, drafts are like the different rolls on the pictures that were taken of this tree. Drafts can be revised, discarded or incorporated into a new one until a writer decides to get focused on their topic. For the drafts we had to decide on what topics to write about, and in the process had to go to different sources such as database, journals, books, the internet etc to obtain more information on the topic. These drafts were called the I-search Proposals. While writing my proposals I had to make used of the school’s library website in order to access EBSCO Host which contained different databases which served as search engines to get literary academic resources. The Physical library and librarians were also crucial in obtaining related information. The internet and conducting surveys are also other ways of getting the required information. Another part of the writing process was reading and critiquing each other’s drafts. This helps one to gain insight and multiple perspectives on their drafts before diving into the final paper.
Knowledge of Conventions
In academic writing as with everything else there are rules which must be followed in order to meet the standards. Some of these rules are writing in a chosen style such as MLA, and APA format etc. These styles are necessary for citing sources in order to ensure proper documentation and to avoid plagiarism, which is often viewed as an academic crime. Within the previously mentioned styles are rules that should be followed. For example in the MLA format when citing from a book one has can either use a signal phrase to show that the following words are not theirs originally and then after that the quoted sentence is written, and then the last name of the author is in parenthesis along with the page the information was taken from, and then it is followed by a period. This is just one of the rules that accompany the MLA style. Something else to be considered in Academic writing is genres. There are different genres such as descriptive, expository, narrative, persuasive, poetry and technical genres. For example, the narrative genre deals with storytelling in full or in part, and is made up of the following characteristics which serve different purposes. These characteristics are:
1. Plot structure
a. Introduction
b. Rising Action
c. Climax
d. Falling Action
e. Resolution
2. Conflict
3. Characterization
4. Setting
5. Theme
6. Point of View
7. Sequencing
8. Transition

It is not only important to consider everything above to successfully engage one’s audience I have realized that it is important to learn the use of proper punctuation. This is something I still need work on. Proper use of punctuation helps a writer’s paper to have clarity and credibility; which are keys to effectively reach one’s audience