Reflection Essay Rough Draft

Timothy Wellmann

Reflection essay

English 121 Prof. Jenn

12/2/2015

Coming into English 121 this semester I set many goals for myself along with becoming a better writer in the subject overall. I found myself very challenged going into each paper I wrote, but always striving to write to the best of my abilities. Not being that great of a writer myself I found many helpful lessons to take away from this class and also where I think I do very well in my writing.

At the beginning of the semester my goals were to pass the class by putting forth all my effort to get the best grade I could achieve. The reason I set this was because in the past I fell into procrastinating on work way too often. This often kept me from doing my best work. I have achieved this goal this semester by pushing myself to work on my papers weeks in advance and breaking up my work throughout the week. I found this really impacted the quality of my paper for the better. Another goal I had was to work what we learned in class to real world experiences with writing. Our class blogs really helped me with that. Thanks to our blogs I have gained the confidence to create and design a blog of my own in the future. At first I had no clue where to start or how difficult it would be to create and design one. With the help of my group through the semester and working on ours I feel very comfortable working with the tools similar to the ones used in class. Then my final goal for this class was I wanted to use it to become a better writer. I think I have partially achieved this goal. The reason being that I have vastly increased in skills such as I don’t address the reader directly anymore, jump to conclusions, or beg the question in my writing anymore. Also there are still many more aspects in my writing I need to improve upon. Some these include doing my in text citations properly and using correct grammar and punctuation.

The research process of my research paper really surprised me for because most of the information I found was completely against my original thesis. I wanted to write about how more gun control would keep America safe, but as I started my research I found how complicated gun control actually is. This caused my to completely change my thesis into what the information supported. I really enjoyed this part of the research process that I could have a completely changed opinion from what I found. This made my paper more difficult for me since I had to change up my thesis, but I did more research to adapt. I probably did five hours worth of research on top of what I did before I changed my thesis. My favorite part of my essay is when I explain how people with mental illness should be aloud to obtain guns because they are no more dangerous than anybody else. I feel like my instructor will enjoy the opposing argument of my essay. The reason why is I feel like I did a great job on explaining how gun control hasn’t worked in most countries, and that violence rates actually went up. I feel like the weakest part of my essay is where I explain how difficult gun control laws are to pass in the United States. The reason why I feel like this part is weak is because I don’t feel like I explained it in depth enough. The reason why I didn’t make this part longer though is my paper was already over seven pages long and I felt like it was already too long for my subject.

My advice for future students doing research papers is the following. My first piece of advice is to use your online databases. The reason I say this is because the quality of information in the online databases is superb compared to what you will find anywhere else online. Also when doing research make sure you know what you are looking for. If you are not looking for a specific piece of information for your paper you are more likely to get off topic during your writing which can destroy your grade. If future students follow those hints they will avoid some of the problems I ran to in this class, but I believe I have learned from those mistakes. This class has helped me become a better writer and even though I might not be proficient yet, but I will keep striving till I am.

Revision Update

1. One thing I think I do really well in my paper that would get me a Superior (A) on the rubric is my thesis statement. In my paper all the evidence I present is all related to my argument without any rambling
2. One thing I think I would score a competent or a (C) on in my paper is in my use of in text citations. The reason for this is I present my sources as evidence really well, but I seam to site them incorrectly in my in text citation.
3. Then something I feel I will score weak (D) in is in my Style. Throughout all my papers I always have a bunch of small grammar and spelling mistakes. The most common mistake I have is misuse of my commas.

Chapter 17 response

Chapter 17 is a chapter that discusses how to use other people's sources in your writing and how to avoid plagiarizing their writing. The chapter starts out by explaining the different ways you can insert some ones writing into your own. The ways the chapter cited are summarizing, quoting, paraphrasing, and synthesizing. The chapter then explains how to to do each one individually and a definition of each one. For example "when you quote, you use a writer's exact words as they appear in the source, including all punctuation, capitalization, and spelling." (721) Then the chapter ends in a helpful little section that discusses how to avoid plagiarism. Over all I found this chapter super helpful. The reason for this is with our current paper being a research paper we have to examine multiple sources and find a way to convey their information into our paper without stealing it and giving them the credit. I will definitely be referring back to this article before I turn in my final draft to make sure I give credit where credit is due.


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Three Rough Draft Improvements

My paper

• The first I improved my paper is I reworded part of my conclusion that didn't really flow.
• The second way I improved on my paper was on my work cited page. On my first draft I printed I made a mistake where my work cited page printed half way down the page. Now my work cited format is correct.
• The final thing I fixed in my paper is I had a couple extra word or missing word mistakes. For example I cited the an author of an article before and then after the quote.

Peter's paper

• The first thing Peter fixed in his paper was he previously had a paragraph describing the Mexican drug cartels business in sex trafficking, but he took it out. That was a good decision because this paragraph felt like it didn't really belong in his paper because it doesn't have to do with his thesis.
• The second thing Peter did was he reworded the start to his second paragraph so it flowed better. Before I didn't know if he meant the cartel brings supplies to make drugs into the U.S, but now I know he meant they supply us with drugs.
• Then over all he took out some extra words, put commas where they were needed, and put in words that were missing. Which now his paper has a nice flow to it.

Ethos, Pathos, And Logos In Writing

Definitions

• Ethos are the credibility of the information you use in your writing. This applies the statistics, quotes, and sources you use for your writing. That is why it is important to evaluate the sources in your writing. Your reader won't be convinced to take your side of a subject if they don't trust or believe the sources you are giving them.
• Pathos are when you try swaying your audience by using their emotions. One way you can use Pathos in your writing is by using images. An example of this when the news reports a catastrophe the station will shows videos and pictures of people crying, destroyed homes, and interview people during an earthquake to draw their audience in through sympathy to watch their program. Another way Pathos assist in writing is they make the audience feel like they can relate to the Author. The picture in the comic is perfect for this example because when Liz posted that picture of her cat that past away, Her audience can relate to that. Because almost all of them have probably have lost a pet in the past. The final way someone can apply Pathos to their writing is by writing using an anecdote in their paper.
• Logos are the most used of the three appeals. Logos are when you appeal to the audience sense of reasons. This is usually the goal of all papers is to present your audience with an idea and by the conclusion of your paper you have used reason to make your audience to think the same thing. You can achieve this by showing statistics, rebutting the counter argument, or explaining why your argument is valid.

Using Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in my research paper

• Ethos: I'm going to build my credibility is through the the statistics and studies my sources have presented me with.
• First I have a study done that shows more than half police deaths happen from an illegally purchased firearm
• I'm gong to quote one of my sources that was written by two authors who both have PhD's that shows that doctors and other professionals and predict future gun violence by a person who is suffering from mental illness.
•   I have statistics that show Australia's gun violence went down with more gun control. This builds my credibility by showing I'm not blind to the opposition, but I'm going to rebuttal it after I present it.
• Pathos
• I'm going to tell the story of Adam Lanza and the Sandy Hook shooting, and another shooting at a middle school to relate to my audience that I understand these awful events taking place.
• After I reason that mental illness doesn't increase gun violence. I'm going to tell a few stories of people with mental illness who did great things. I'm doing this to show my audience that we shouldn't fear people with mental illness, but to sympathize with them.
• Finally I'm going to expose how we live in a gun centered culture. Part of this is going to come from the story of the revolution, our music, and our entertainment. This will connect me with my audience by showing we all live in the same culture together.
• Logos: Here are my main reasoning points I'm going to argue in my essay.
• Mental illness doesn't affect gun violence so not allowing people suffering from mental to by guns won't stop future gun violence.
• We should focus on using money for gun control on policies that will protect people instead. Such as having police officers in schools.
• Most felonies can obtain a firearm illegally
• Further gun control laws will not pass with our current culture.
• Most mass shootings have happened with hand guns vs. assault weapons

Chapter 16 Response

   Chapter 16 discusses the very important topic of finding and evaluating sources, which is a skill every Student needs to have. The chapter begins with the sources you can find related to your campuses library such as online catalogs, electronic data bases, reference works, and sources for facts and statistics. The chapter then goes on to explain and define each one of these such as an electronic database is "Libraries subscribe to electronic databases- for example, Expanded academic ASAP or LexisNexis Academic Universe. These are electronic databases enable you to access information from hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and journals." (713-714) The chapter then goes on to discuss the difference of scholar sources you can get from your library vs normal articles you find online. The article explains how to evaluate the source to see if it credible to use in your work. Some of questions you can ask your self while reading an online article can be is it current? Is the author an expert in the subject? Is the information influenced? Does it provide professional examples to shoe it's accurate? Does it cover the subject in depth? Then the chapter explains that when using a source from the library it has already been checked through and approved. So you don't need to worry about those things when using a source from your library.
    My personal reaction of this article is that I know a lot of this information all ready. Growing up in today's generation teachers understand that this is a skill all students need to learn at an early age. The book states to never use Wikipedia, but that is something I've known since my early stages of learning to write research papers in middle school. So overall I personally didn't take anything in from this article, but that doesn't mean this article is a waste. This chapter can possess great information for someone who is returning to college in there late 30's and up who didn't grow up with this information being standard. So this Chapter can be really helpful to the people who need it.

- Timothy Wellmann


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