Essay Writing II Reflective Portfolio
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Initial Expectations
Once I registered for the Essay Writing II course, I thought the first thing we were going to discuss was the research paper and how to write papers that can be published. I also thought that we would do a study on a social phenomenon to improve our understanding of research in general. Lately, my expectations of the course were like the content we took. I liked how the first assignment in this course, which was the argumentative essay, was the same as the last assignment in the Essay Writing I course. This refreshed my memory and was a great introduction to the course. Although the assignment was the same, it was more detailed and advanced which helped me move forward to the next step in my writing skills. In the Essay Writing I course, I learned the structure of paragraphs and how to make my essay coherent. This structure helped me accurately form all paragraphs in the argumentative essay and the research paper.
Selected Course Work
As mentioned before, the first assignment was an argumentative essay. It was relatively simple, but I faced some struggles in linking the idea I wrote and the evidence I used from studies; even when I tried to link them once I showed them to my peer, she said the connection needed to be stronger. Also, at the beginning of the assignment, I thought the hardest part was finding perspectives that were against my point but reading much research from different points of view helped me solve this problem. However, the most challenging part was the rebuttals; it was harder to convince my audience again of my point after discussing something against it. To overcome these struggles, I went to the office hours to show the professor my work and ask him to clarify these points. After getting feedback and clarification from the professor, writing these elements in the argumentative essay was way more manageable. At the end of the essay, I compared it to the argumentative essay I wrote in the previous essay course. I noticed how my writing improved and how I became a better critical thinker. What was more essential to me was the feedback I received after submitting the essay; it helped me better understand my weaknesses, so I worked more on them.
For the second assignment, which is the research paper, I was expecting such an assignment. Still, I was afraid of it because I used to write research papers in Arabic, but this was the first time I had to write it in English, and this made me overthink the assignment, which reduced my productivity. Lately, it appears that this concerns most of the students in the class, so we shared our fears with the professor to give us some recommendations, he simplified the assignment to us and the main advice was to organize and write down our thoughts for the topic we will discuss then to start reading to broaden our horizons and to have a prior knowledge of the topics. This advice was like an enlightenment for me; it was my guide in choosing my topic. After I had written down the topics that related to my major and that I was interested in, I started reading about them. The main topic that grabbed my attention was parental involvement in primary schools due to its importance. Once I started writing the topic, I realized the differences in the structure of the usual essay and the research papers. Also, it was my first time writing an abstract and bibliography; it was a challenge to streamline the research into 150 words for the abstract. What was more challenging was to differentiate between the discussion and the conclusion. What helped me to overcome this challenge was the sample that was provided on the blackboard. As usual, before submitting the assignment, I showed it to my peer, and this was the best part of the assignment; it showed me the audience’s perspective and grabbed my attention to clarify ambiguities for audiences.
Growing as a Writer
This course gave me the opportunity to write my first research paper, which boosted my confidence in writing. It also helped me evaluate sources, which improved the quality and accuracy of my writing. Additionally, taking this course showed me my weaknesses in citing correctly in APA, and to master this skill, I started citing by myself all resources I use, either in Arabic or English, instead of copying the citations the study provides. Also, from the feedback I got, I noticed that my writings lack coherence and cohesion. Hence, after the finals finish, I plan to rewrite my essays while considering this weakness to pay attention to it; also, reading more articles and studies will help me improve this point. In conclusion, this course enhanced my academic writing skills; it helped me know my strengths and weaknesses so that I could work more on them.
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