Self-Assessment

In my previous English class, I learnt the concept of coming up with a thesis and providing information that elaborate on or prove my thesis. I learnt that your writing should be precise and clear. It should always be structured in a way that is easy to follow. However, in this class I add on to this thought by take into consideration the ideas within my writing and the context that surrounds it. Prior to this class I had a hard time understanding how to let information fit into my writing. By understanding the conventions of scientific writing, I have learnt not only to be objective in my writing but to ensure that all my facts are plain and accurate. This leads me to discuss the specific learning outcomes I have improved in this semester as well as the learning outcome I still need to improve on.

The first learning outcome that I improved in this class is “engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond to include public audiences”. Prior to taking this course, I had little knowledge about how genre affects the interest of my audience. In taking this class, I learnt how important it is to understand what genre will get the attention of a particular audience. By doing the public awareness campaign, I learnt how you can incorporate different genres to allow you to reach a wider audience. In this class, I have seen that although a concept in your writing may be understood specifically by a particular audience; there are ways and means to incorporate different genres whether it will be visuals or stories to reach a wider audience. When doing the Rhetorical analysis, I came to realize that one genre can be implemented into another to give it a clearer meaning. Additionally, by analyzing how effective a specific genre is in reaching their audience and fulfilling their purpose. I learnt in my own writing what genre can be most effective in reaching my intended audience. Moreover, I learnt what to incorporate into my specific genre to ensure that my audience can understand. For example, when I was working on my public awareness, I knew that based on my knowledge of doing the Rhetorical analysis, a brochure would be one best genre to use to get my message across. In doing the brochure, I included visuals and overall concrete information about the vaccines present for the Covid-19 and how that allow me not only to fulfill my purpose but to present the information in a way that a wider audience could understand.

The second learning outcome I thought that I improved in was “strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources.” In preparation to write the literature review I had to learn to analyze and synthesize the information from various sources. This class taught me that there is an easier way to understand the information from any article by providing different methods on how to assess the validity of the information from a specific article. For example, when analyzing an article, I learnt to first focus on the information from the introduction and the conclusion of the source then the methods and the results to see if it fits what I need for my topic. In doing the literature review, I learnt to summarize the information given from the articles by giving account of the methods use in each article and the variables each article was addressing. For example, I stated “In the article “Determinants of Covid-19 vaccine acceptance in the US” by Malik et al, it provides information on the demographic of the United States by using an online survey on cloud research. It shows how people’s acceptance of the Covid-19 vaccine is influenced by socioeconomic factors including low income, educational standards, employment, race, ethnicity and age.”

Furthermore, I had to drew information from each article that relate to each topic I was discussing in my literature review. Moreover, I evaluated the results and the methods by discussing the limitations in each article. Overall, doing the literature has taught me how to effectively acquire information from different sources and get a greater understanding on how to use the information required to get a broader knowledge about my topic.

However, one outcome I thought I need improvement in is “develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes”. Prior to this English class I had little experience having peer reviews with members of a group that share a similar input on a topic. Being online in a group made it harder for me to communicate with my peers. As such, I thought engaging with my peers online was a bit difficult. I did not get the anything essential from working with my peers in a group. I found it difficult to address the concerns of my peer’s essays because I did not become accustom to them. Therefore, I reluctantly wanted to provide criticism towards their writings. I found it difficult to pick a point from the essay that was off because I did not want to compare my writing to theirs. For example, I stated “This paper is well researched on the effect of the two types of influenza vaccine. The articles provided show similar information about the effect of the influenza.” This shows that I struggled to provide vivid descriptions and explanations towards my peer’s writing. In the future, I hope to improve on providing helpful input for my peers by following the rubric given and to be able to connect their writing to it, so that I can give them a better overview of how to improve their writing. Moreover, I failed to really get essential input my peers as well.

Overall, taking this class has really taught me a lot on how important rhetorical elements are in helping to understand the effectiveness of different genre that can allow you to address a wider audience in the clearest and most precise way. Additionally, it also helps me to develop more skills on how to summarize, synthesize and evaluate information from sources more effectively. In contrast, there is still a lot of room of improve on because I still need to learn to improve on the social aspect of my writing which is very important part in the writing p