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Anthony Mello
UWRT 1102
Instructor: Fran Voltz
April 21st, 2015
Course Reflection Essay
Reflective writing is a form of writing just like any other. It has specific characteristics
that change your train of thought and force you to look at your writing through a whole different
scope. Reflective writing forces you, the writer, to look at your work from a different perspective
and be able to grasp not only the concepts of what you are writing, but how you could be
perceived by others reading your work. You have to rewire your brain to view your writings from
outside the box so you can thoroughly critique and polish your work. To me, this could arguably
be the most important aspect of writing. You are forcing yourself to reflect on what you have
written and take into consideration any errors you have made and anything you can improve on.
It also forces you to look at your writing and dig deeper into understanding what youre saying
and determining if youve done it effectively or not. This should be included in any writing class
because its in the moments that youre reflecting on your work that you can more easily realize
the errors of things youve done and also recognize your strengths too. Its key to developing into
a strong writer and knowing what to be more consciously aware of when you are writing so you
can be more clear and better portray your message to your audience. The whole point of
reflective writing is to dive deeper into your own thoughts and processes, much like the task of
doing extended inquiry research.
Inquiry is a lot more advanced than just research itself. Inquiry requires you to do more
than just report back on your findings, it forces you to analyze what you have found, narrow
down to a more specific topic, and explore your own mind in order to draw conclusions. Its

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about going into the depths of your brain in order to gain insight on your topic. You arent just
unconsciously showing results from a topic, you are actively seeking answers and drawing new
conclusions from what you learn. Along the way multiple branches pop up and inquiry requires
you to follow one line of branches to a specific topic that you can evaluate and think about
critically. So, the reason for having us do an inquiry project rather than just a research paper was
so we would take that extra step to explore our own minds and be able to gain new insight and
awareness about what we selected as our topic. It has to do with the overall theme of the course,
in which we are using our own brains for reasoning and logic in order to be more informed and
consciously aware individuals. All of the processes involved in inquiry projects is crucial for
diving deeper into your subject and being able to gain more knowledge and better narrow your
topic.
The initial processes I took for the EIP project were actually very crucial to me. My topic
on free will was extremely broad and it took me almost the whole semester to narrow my topic
down. I used a few different methods in order to narrow my topic. One thing that really helped
me was mapping out my main topic and trying to narrow down to smaller things. This allowed
me to put all of my knowledge about a topic on a condensed piece of paper, and figure out what
interested me the most, or what I wanted to learn more about. Another thing that really helped
me was reflecting on my proposal plan in order to gain ideas about where to start with my first
draft. I would look at all my ideas and the questions I had and try to formulate them into one
solid question about the topic of free will. I would watch various videos, read scholarly articles,
and try and figure out what I could use as my final topic. It would eventually result in one of the
most famous contributors to the question of free will, Benjamin Libet. Something I didnt find all
that helpful in the processes were the peer workshops. I felt that I only got information on things

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to correct that I was already aware of being wrong. The instructors feedback was much more
helpful in this case. Lastly something that helped me in the early processes was the original draft
I created. This draft I dont even consider my first draft, it was just an outline. It was more of a
plan than it was a draft. But looking back on it I realize how crucial it was to my writing process
and set the stage for the structure and ordering of my final EIP essay. I made sure in my final
draft to be more specific in my examples and really explain myself thoroughly so my audience
could understand me. The thing I found to be most challenging and frustrating was narrowing my
topic of free will. This took me practically the whole semester and it took days of research and
planning for me to figure it out for myself. The most satisfying thing was finally determining
what I wanted to do for my topic. It turned into excitement once I started researching and
learning more. It would escalate rapidly and peak my interests, making the essay and research
more easy and enjoyable. Something Ive noticed about the whole writing process is that it never
truly ends. Theres always more to research or more to correct. You can always adjust paragraphs
or sentences to increase clarity, and someone will always have an opinion about your wording.
This is due to the fact that everyone has a different perspective and interpretation of a text. You
can never please everyone, and whats clear to one person may not be to another. Therefore, as a
writer, the ultimate challenge is finding that median in which you can appeal to multiple
audiences and allow more people to hear and understand your message.
During this course something that came up multiple times during the semester was the art
of persuasion and the role it plays on an audience. We saw this all the time, in almost any text
you could identify some type of persuasion or manipulation. You can see how every text is trying
to mold your thinking in some way and we watched the effects it has on society.

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The only writing strategy I can really say works for me is a pretty basic one. I like writing
out all my ideas and getting a feel for how much general knowledge I have on the subject and
constructing some type of order or scheme to this and then going in and filling in the gaps. I start
to create more detailed sentences and make my paragraphs have more structure. Eventually Ill
end up with a solid first draft that I revise from there with help from the instructor. My main
weaknesses seem to be repetitiveness and also some structuring issues. I went through my final
EIP essay and made sure that I got rid of any repeating statements. This added to the clarity of
my paper. As for my structuring issues, this really only occurred in my proposal draft. My
transitions were at the end of paragraphs rather than the beginning of the following one. This was
a simple correction to make and I now know how to transition more efficiently.
My best piece of writing throughout the whole class was by far the IAT Test journal entry.
This was the best piece because it seemed I really overcame a lot of weaknesses I have. I often
times have trouble with clear wording and paragraph structuring. This was not the case for this
piece and I feel my paragraphs were structured very well and that my wording was extremely
clear. My paragraphs had good transitions and were structured logically, as well. Also I had few
grammatical errors and feel that I was able to clearly get my message across. I also think it is my
best piece because I made so many connections and was really able to explore my own mind in
order to give answers to questions I had. In a way I did my own small inquiry process. I started
with reflecting on my upbringing and personal views and then went on to compare them to my
results and questions which would lead me to the answers I was seeking. I continued to dive
deeper and deeper into my mind until I came up with the solutions. With every thought I found
myself picking apart ideas I had and narrowing it down until I got the answers I was seeking.

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The most important things I have learned about in this class in relation to my reading,
writing, and other topics involved in this course, is the art of persuasion. This was one of the first
lessons we learned in the class and it was the foundation for every topic that we learned about.
Persuasion is the key to getting people to see or believe what you are trying to portray. It gets
more specific with the use of ethos, pathos, and logos. These three things are critical in any point
that is made and are what is used to persuade your audience. We see this used throughout the
course. We see pseudo-events, propaganda use, satire, and other means of communication that
are used to persuade us in everyday life. Im still slowly learning the process of using these three
appeals because they are what makes a paper stand out and truly make it great. In both journal 4
and 7 I use my own brief narratives to evoke emotion and appeal to the pathos part of persuasion.
I give stories that are able to be connected with in order to provoke sentiment from my audience
and gain more insight into where Im coming from with my logic. To appeal to ethos I always
made sure throughout any of my pieces of work not to be biases in any way. I always presented
the subject from a fair and equal standpoint so I would show myself as more credible and not
biased. Another thing I used for ethos was using good scholarly sources, for example in my EIP
essay. I made sure to only use articles from credible scientists who were experts in their field of
study. As for logos, I appealed to this through the use of factual information. I did this in my EIP
essay as well, using quotes from experts and using their scientific data to form my point. I also
would be sure to explain things as thoroughly as possible throughout all my work which is
another way to appeal to logos. As for reading, knowing the art of persuasion as well as ethos,
pathos, and logos, is extremely important as well. For example I now know how big supermarket
companies and other big corporations attempt to appeal to me and persuade me into buying
things. I also know to look at pieces of writing critically from all angles. For example, when

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reading the information about Piss Christ, I tried to think about and understand how different
sides could back up and support their sides of the story as to why this was offensive or not. I
thought of how both could use various points of ethos, pathos, and logos, to get their audience to
side with them. If there is anything that I take from this course it will be the art of persuasion and
how to get your audience to believe you. It is the most important piece of writing and to master
the skill will greatly benefit any person.
For this portfolio I believe I should get an A. I have worked hard throughout the year and
put forth effort into every assignment I turned in. Ive not only done that but Ive gone through
and made every little grammatical correction necessary to make my pieces as polished and
finished as they can be. In addition, I gave thorough reasoning for why I included each piece in
my portfolio and made sure to meet every bit of criteria needed for my explanations of why I
included them. I also think that I deserve an A for really reflecting on what Ive done in this
course and successfully learning how to do reflective writing. I also feel I really hit the nail on
the head with elaborating on what lessons Ive learned from this class and how I will apply it to
my later writings.