#15

I expected to achieve college level of writing that I could use the writing skill in my future academic life. As I was writing through the reflection essay for my portfolio, I felt I learned how to understand a rhetorical situation for reading and writing which is going to be very beneficial skill to use in future. For my other classes’ assignment, I could apply the skill and it will contribute my academic life such as getting better grades. I still work on writing concisely and clearly and context organization as well. I would like to continue develop to focus on the main idea as I write and I need to work on the grammar, too. I think I achieved more than I expected. Even though I have many weaknesses to improve, I struggled through the semester to become a better writer. Now I am able to understand the rhetorical principles such as targeting audiences, purpose of writing, stance, tone, and genre. I will study continuously and I will do my best to be a good writer.

#14

I chose to revise my ad analysis essay for my portfolio. The strengths of my ad analysis were that I described the advertisement efficiently and clearly stated my idea of the advertisement. The weaknesses were that my paper was not organized concisely and I put irrelevant statement in the concluding paragraph which wandered from the main topic.

I am going to work in better organization my paragraphs to effectively revise my essay. I believe the instructor’s comment on my paper will help to revise my ad analysis paper. As I go over each paragraph, I will consider how the paragraph focuses on my thesis and relates to the topic. Moreover, I will us summarize of my paragraphs, that I wrote in the class before, to check my main idea is stated logically and plausibly. I am going to ask myself as a skeptical reader, that each claim I made were reasonable, and effectively support. I will work on the organization effectively and avoid irrelevant sentence. I hope that this process will help me to revise my essay easily, effectively, and stick on my main idea throughout the essay.

#13

My favorite paper is the second paper, Ad analysis. I chose the ad and I have most enjoyed writing. It was first time to analyze the ad; however, I think I learned how to read the advertisement through this assignment. I also enjoyed when we analyzed Beyoncé’s got milk advertisement. Actually I’ve never thought about magazine’s advertisement deeply, but while we analyzed the ad in class intensively, I got really excited.

So I chose the iRiver ad which is very interesting advertisement compared to Apple. I felt it is the easiest assignment because reading the visual text and analyze is much convenient for me than analyzed the article. The visual text helps me to understand easily. In addition, I tried to write well to the audience who has no idea about the ad because I chose the advertisement. While I was writing the essay, I found lots of things from one advertisement. The purpose of the ad, how they use and display the color in the ad, and how they appeal to the audience were presented in on picture of the ad. The process made me think in-depth the visual text and I wrote them in my words and my sentences, I was able to improve writing skill a little bit. Therefore, the most enjoyed writing is the Ad analysis essay.

#12

My claim is the current U-Pass system is unfair and the university needs to create discounted program for students who are using other methods of commuter than U-Pass because nobody like to be forced to subsidize other students in their transportation costs. The U-Pass is unlimited bus and train riding card only for full-time students, however, if full-time students drop a class and become part-time, they are still paying a higher tuition fee plus full-prices bus passes is my the strongest evidence. The evidence is logically sound that how the system is unfair to the student and it is something that my audience will be familiar with their own experience. I’m going to emphasize the students’ complaints that they should not subsidize CTA bus or train commuters and part-time students who are using the system’s flaw.

My weakest evidence is the U-Pass should be available for part-time students because they just want and need it. I need to provide more specific evidence with statistics. However, the essay is based on my knowledge without research, I’m going to use the strongest evidence that there is a possibility student could abuse the current system. As a result, full-time students who are using the other commuter methods, such as Metra, cars, and walkers, are subsidizing the others even they are paying full price of commuter. In addition, my audience is likely aware, the U-Pass rate is much cheaper than regular CTA pass because the involvement of an all-or-nothing decision for school. To strengthen this part of my argument, I will admit that U-pass is useful for many students. Bur I will also emphasize the necessity of subsidizing program for the victims of the unfair system.

#11

I analyzed “the $78 million bag”. The authors used an informal tone to build a connection to the reader such as marijuana, weed, and cannabis. Also the authors stated “it’s costing a fortune to dole out punishment for something that a lot of you – come on, ‘fess up - probably did last night.” In this statement, the writers generalized that all of us did weed which is very weaken their argument by making less authoritative. Including myself, I have never used drug, so the statement falls short of convincing.  I’ve learn that I need to choose my tone carefully and I realized that tone can effect trustworthy. The authors assume that African-Americans are the most of arresting, prosecuting, and jailing for marijuana possession. They didn’t provided accurate evidence of the fact and their statement about African-American is almost racism. This taught me that I have to use accurate evident to support my argument and be respectful for all of readers. At last, they argued only one side of the argument. To give trustworthy the writing, writer should consider all side of the argument. While they debated only one side of the topic, legalization and taxing of marijuana to reduce wasting money on misdemeanor arrest, their argument was weaken again. This also taught me that I should consider all side of subject matter as I write an argument paper to make my argument effectively. The important three points that I learned from analyzing argument article are concise choice of appropriate tone, using the accurate evidence to support my argument, and considering all side of the topic for my argument paper.  

#10

We performed peer review a little different way. We first met in a small group and discuss our ideas. I felt it was very helpful to understand other’s thoughts and ideas on the same topic we wrote about. It was nice opportunity to explore the main idea in-depth. Even it made me to think that I hadn’t realized meaning when I read and understand the main idea. I think the small group discussion was helpful. However, read out loud our essay is not very effective. As peers were reading their essay, I couldn’t concentrate to follow the essay compare to just reading them.  

If the writer’s thesis statement and organization are not clear, I would not understand well as a second language speaker. Therefore, whenever I understand and identify the essay’s thesis statement and organization such as summarize part, analysis part, and personal response part easily, the essay has clearly states thesis and organized effectively. The weakness is I cannot analyze the essay deeply. Frankly speaking, while I did peer reviewing I felt everybody is write well than mine and good writers. So I tended to give them a positive feedback.

Also, we are peer reviewing with first draft which is not a perfect and unfinished work. I found out that reviewers put comments on incomplete work is not very helpful. It helps in some way such as grammar errors but we are peer reviewing as not an expert reader, thus, people tend to put positive comment just like me. Because peers put comments on technical grammar errors other than entire organization or contextual effectiveness, the peer’s comment less helpful in revision step. I think we had enough time of peer review time in class. In addition, the ideal peer reviewing process for me is discussing in a large group rather than read out loud to peers.

#9

In my writing, I tend to use very simple sentence structure like “They did…and they did…” that make my essay so boring. As a second language speaker, I’ve been taught subject and verb are need to make complete sentence. Therefore, even though I acknowledge my writing pattern, I prone to use so many of simple sentences. I will try not to use the simple structure and change them to give variety as I revise my drafts and read them several times to fix the pattern.  

I also make a lot of errors in tenses. I usually get confused by perfect tense and past tense. This error cause my essay to seem mixed up and makes no sense at all. Even I try to fix my tense errors by read my writing several times, it is difficult for me to recognize them and correct them in right tenses. So I will try to work with tutors to improve my skills in writing particularly in tenses. And I will be more pay attention as I revise my drafts and read my essay sevreal times just looking for repeating words. 

In my writing, I always try to use my word and my sentence. Just like using simple subject verb sentence structure, repeating the same words makes my writing tedious and boring. Because my vocabulary is weak, I tend to use easy words and use the same words in writing several times. Lack of variety in words and structure will decrease reader’s attention and it is not a good writing. To improve my vocabulary power, I will try to read more books and use diverse words in writing. Also I will be more careful not to use the same word as I revise my drafts.