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Katie Morris
Professor Deadrick
English 102
May 6th, 2016
Reflection Essay
As a Computer Engineering major, English is not my strong suit. To me, English is like a
complicated math equation that is solvable by six different methods with only one correct
approach. With my difficulty with English, I was not expecting my English 102 class to go as
well as it did. Throughout my semester, my grades on my papers went from a c- to an A+. I even
scored a 100% on one paper, which made me completely flabbergasted. I have never scored that
high on anything, let alone an English paper. At the beginning of the semester; my English 102
professor asked the students to write an introductory goal paper, explaining the goals for the
class. A few of those goals included becoming a better emailer reporter and writer (Morris,
Introductory Goals). I believe that in this semester, I accomplished that with help from the course
objectives. These course objectives include mastering Effective Writing, Information Literacy,
and Critical Analysis Development (Deadrick, English 102 Syllabus). By the end of the English
102, I met the majority of the course requirements.
Looking back on the semester, I believe I have mastered the objective of Effective
Writing. Effective Writing is the ability to research and write about a topic while organizing the
thesis as well as the structure of the paper. Professor Deadrick asked the class to write many
papers over the semester. One of these papers included a Visual Argument Ad. In this
assignment, I wrote about a Salvation Army Ad arguing domestic violence. I found that the topic

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I chose was hard to find sources to back up my solutions. However, in my paper, I included
Rhetorical techniques such as logos, ethos, pathos, to make my arguments more sufficient. For
instance, in my assignment, I appealed to the readers pathos by describing the black and blue
bruises and how they might make the viewer feel sorry for the person. This appealed to the
readers emotion which is appealing to pathos. I did find however that getting the length of the
paper to meet the requirements was difficult. However, towards the end of the semester, I became
quite good at it. My papers went from 825 words in the Rhetorical analysis paper in the raid
redemption (Morris, Rhetorical Analysis of Raid Redemption) to 2500 words (Morris,
Cybersecurity in Context). By the end of the semester, it took me half of the time to write almost
four times the words. In addition to that, On my first paper, I scored 5/8 of a point for the claim
of the paper, while on the exploratory paper, I scored a 4 out of 5 points for the Introduction.
Even though, yes I never got the full points for the intro, it shows significant improvement from
the first paper. Thus, I believe I have mastered the Effective Writing objective.
I feel that I have grasped the understanding of information literacy. Information literacy is
the ability to use valid sources, formulate questions, and not plagiarize. I found this objective to
be especially helpful in learning about the library database and learning how to use it, instead of
using Google. Even though, I can admit, I did use the Google search engine this semester, it was
hard to sort the scholarly sources from the non-scholarly ones. The database made this a lot
easier to separate these articles. I found also found that using more academic sources, my
content, as well as the grades of my papers, were improved. For instance, on my exploratory
paper, I scored a 5/5 (Morris, Cyber Security in Context), while on my Rhetorical argument on
the raid redemption, I scored a 2.5 out of 4 (Morris, Rhetorical Analysis of Raid Redemption).

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Being that the raid redemption paper was my first paper, this shows that I learned how to deal
with sources and other forms of documents, as well as learned more about scholarly sources.
By the end of the semester, I feel that I have successfully mastered the critical analysis
and reasoning objective. Critical analysis and reasoning are the ability to analyze arguments, as
well as identify other viewpoints and using appeals to formulate opinions. In each of the papers
over the semester, the students needed to read sources and analyze what the author was trying to
say, and then write about the argument or their opinion of the issue. In my first paper, the
assignment was to read an article, write a paper on the argumentation and address whether or not
the article is a cogent argument. I feel that this assignment was the most challenging because it
required students to identify the other viewpoint. It was difficult for me because I have never
been skillful in pinpointing the other point of view. However, with the more practice I received
identifying arguments, the more I was able to distinguish other points of view. I think this is due
to the research I have done on the other papers.
Throughout the semester, there were a few things I could have improved. On the first
couple of assignments, I feel that my grades cold have improved by going to the writing center. I
found that there was a writing center, shortly after I have submitted the Visual argument paper. If
I would have gone to the writing center sooner, I feel that I would have done better on my first
and second assignment. In addition to that, I could have worked on my papers in increments
instead of waiting for a few days before to start it. This would have given me time to proofread
and edit my writing while not making it so much to do at once. I plan on working to improve my
procrastination in other classes and finding out about other tutoring opportunities. However, I
will not be taking any more English classes.

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Even though this semester on top of my other classes has been rough, I found that
English 102 was a nice break from my other stressful classes.I believe that I have met the
requirements of English 102. These requirements have geared me into writing more persuasive
types of work and taught me how to illustrate my opinion in a more formal way. Even though I
still have a few things to work on, I plan on improving these skills in the year and a half I have
left at Montgomery College.

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Work cited
Deadrick, Anna. English 102 Syllabus. Document. Rockville, Maryland 20850.
Morris, Katie. Introduction Goals. Document. Rockville, Maryland 20850.
Morris, Katie. Rhetorical Analysis of Raid Redemption. Document. Rockville,
Maryland 20850.
Morris, Katie, Cyber Security in Context. Document. Rockville, Maryland 20850.