Mylinh Pham

Writing 39C
Professor Broadbent
4 June 2018

Reflective introduction

I. Post High School, Pre-College

“Oh, great. Another writing class I have to sign up for,” I thought to myself. Growing up,
I have always had a hared for writing. I never liked it because it wasn’t like math or science
where there was a concrete final answer. Instead writing was an area where I was taught how to
think and write, and every teacher had a different idea of what was good and what wasn’t. I
didn’t like the fact that I was confined to this world of writing- where there had to be five
paragraphs, timed essays, or the topics I was writing about didn’t interest me or that my teacher
said it “didn’t intrigue her.” I carried this hatred with me to college when I found out that I had to
complete the writing 39 series. But I was wrong. Through the process of Writing 37 and 39C, I
found out that writing is a whole new world. It is a space where I can go from creatively
expressing myself to finding evidence for an intense research paper. Writing 39C specifically
was more intense than I thought but it wasn’t difficult. With hardwork and dedication, I pushed
through and learned more about myself not only as a student, but as a writer.

II. Transition to College Level Writing

It was hard transitioning to the WR 37 college level writing class coming from a
highschool that underprepared me. I had to get rid of my old writing habits and it wasn’t easy. I
was used to writing with the formulaic five paragraph essay style that got straight to the point of
my essay topic with me reader. It was simple. Easy. So when I came here and learned to throw
all of that out of the window, I was shocked. The most I’ve written for an essay was four pages,
and now in my writing class I was told that the normal amount of pages for an essay was 10! I
was scared, I knew my writing wasn’t horrible but I knew it needed some work. Over the course
of WR 37, it taught me how to use rhetoric to relate what I’m writing back to my audience. With
this, it helped me connect with my audience for them to realize the importance of the topic I was
writing about. Anyone could write an essay, but not everyone could write an effective essay
where the readers can understand and relate to what the topic is. Taking this information with
me, I moved on to Writing 39C where I believe I made the biggest improvements as a writer.

III. WR 39C, Effectively Using Secondary Sources

 The focus on WR 39C classes is research. The purpose is for the students to learn how to
properly research material, using correct and accurate resources in order to articulate a well
written advocacy paper. When coming into WR 39C, I admit I didn’t know a lot about
effectively using research websites or what exactly was a “scholarly article.” Whenever I had to
use secondary sources, my immediate action was to go to Google.com, type in the key words for
my essay topic, and hope that something that ​looked​ scholarly popped up based on the website
link that it had; for example, if it had a “.org” or a “.gov.” I had always relied on this tactic until I
started WR 39C.

The picture above is how I used to search for scholarly articles when writing a paper and needed
evidence. I would hop on Google, not even GoogleScholar, and type in keywords that related to
my topic.

In WR39C, I was exposed to what makes an article a “scholarly article,” different methods of
finding scholarly articles, and different websites/databases that are available to me whenever I
need to use them for research. We took time out to go to the library to learn about the different
academic search tools that were available to students, not just for english classes but in general
when needed to search for a scholarly source such as databases like Academic Search Complete,
JSTOR, and think tank links that were under the Writing 39C tab on the UCI library home page.
From this, I learned how to navigate my way through scholarly databases in order to add
evidence to my essay. This strengthened the argument of my essay to allow me to reassert my
claim that my topic is/was a problem. For example in the HCP, we were suppose to write about a
political/social/cultural/economic issue that is currently around us. For my topic, I wrote about
Eurocentric beauty standards and the effect that it has on Asian and Asian American women. I
knew about this partially because of my personal experiences as an Asian American woman
myself, bt after researching, I learned that there was so much more to the issue than people just
calling me “fat.” It is a standard to reach social acceptance that derived from the colonial ages of
Europe! I was not only shocked but intrigued of what researching can do, I found out about the
rise of skin whitening products, plastic surgery reconstruction of the Asian monolid, how Asian
beauty standards are influenced by Eurocentric ideologies etc.

The picture above shows how I do research for essays now. I use legitimate and scholarly
databases that have articles made by researchers, professors, doctors, from all over the world at
the palm of my hands.

Looking back at how I used to “research” to how I do now, I realized that my method was wrong
and I grew from it. I now notice that my method before was not accurate or efficient to use as a
way of researching. Random Google searches provide multiple websites/articles but it is up to
me to determine what was trustworthy or scholarly and now academic search bases do that for
me automatically. The new way of researching cuts the work that I used to do into seconds,
allowing me to not only finish work faster, but ensures accuracy of evidence. It’s a little
embarrassing to look back at my old research ways, but this was a major area of growth for me. I
learned from my past mistakes so that now I can apply the proper way of researching not just to
English essays, but for whenever I need it inside or outside of school.

IV. Structuring My Essay

 Whenever I’m writing, especially on a topic that I’m passionate about I tend to have a lot
of ideas flowing through my mind at once. With all of these ideas flowing through my head, I
like to write them down before I forget about them and come back to it later when I clean up my
essay. This is good because it means that I have lots of ideas and information to write my essay
on but it also has a downside. Because I have so many ideas flowing through when I’m writing, I
feel like I have to include every idea that comes through because if I don’t then I’m potentially
missing out on crucial information that my essay needs. As a result because of this, my essays
are oftentimes overwhelmed with information, causing for the structure and flow of the
information to be unorganized. I had this problem from WR 37 and it took me some time to
improve on, but in WR 39C with the essay topics being so complex with background history and
information along with its length of 10-15 page average, I was overwhelmed with ideas again,
feeling pressured to make sure my ideas fit the page requirements.
I specifically had a hard time with this on my first draft on my HCP. I had great scholarly
sources and evidence included in my essay but it didn’t make sense because the structure and
format of my essay was out of order. I started off my essay with the history of colonization and
how beauty standards came to be because of this, but got too caught up in the background
information that it took me until the third page to get to the main idea of my essay, which was
the negative effects of the Eurocentric beauty standards. This continued throughout the paper, I
included information too late into the essay that it made my argument weaker instead of
strengthening it. My professor noticed this in my draft and left comments for me to realize how
even though I had a strong paper, the format wasn’t flowing, decreasing the effectiveness of my
essay.
The point of the HCP was to find a problem and convince my readers that it is a problem that
should be talked about. The information of the essay is important, but what matters is how I
present the information in an effective way to convince my readers why it’s an issue. What
makes it a legitimate problem enough that society should care? That was the whole point of the
Historical Convention Project. Taking in his comments, I sat down and wrote down the ideas that
would have the most impact to my reader in my essay. A lot of information is good to have, but
that doesn’t always mean that it’s good information. I wanted to convince my reader that the
problem ​is​ a problem and why it needs to have light shed on it. So I redefined the structure of my
essay; I shortened my background information to make sure it doesn’t go too deep into the
concept of colorism/slavery, and then transition into how the colonization and creation of
Eurocentric beauty ideologies helped influence Asian beauty standards. I then introduced why it
was a problem, specific examples of why it is a problem, what allows it to continue, and what the
issue is like in society today. This structure directed my reader in the flow of: what -> when ->
where -> who -> why.

What: Eurocentric beauty standards

When: Dates back to the colonial era to now
Where: In Asia
Who: Specifically Asian women
Why: Damage to mental/emotional/physical health

This structure was much better than the one I originally had and allowed me to narrow down my
ideas/evidence to use in my essay to make sure that it gets straight to the point. Using this
structure, I submitted my HCP final draft and got amazing feedback on it! I was so relieved
because structuring essays is something I continuously need to work on, but with the helpful
comments my teacher left I was able to make an effective essay! Motivated by this, I took the
advice from my HCP and applied it to writing my Advocacy Project rough draft. Even though it
was just a rough draft, if I could get the structure right I would have a guide of how to write my
final draft. Eventually, all my hard work paid off! I submitted my AP and not only did I get good
feedback on it but I got a good grade! YASS!

V. How I Apply WR 39C Outside the Classroom

Researching and proper structuring doesn’t only apply to when you’re writing. I found it
useful in both my personal and scholarly parts of life. Nowadays, there are various topics with
varying sides- from current politics to current social movements taking place, there are always
new things happening. And in order to be informed about what is going on and make an
informed decision when acting/speaking upon these issues, one needs to do research on the topic
and that is where the skills of writing 39C goes hand and hand. I am a very big advocate for
social justice so with the current movements, I like to do my research on them before I say
something. Overall, the writing 39 series was a ride and my favorite so far has been 39C. Even
with the heavy workload, the course work is interesting so it makes it go by faster. Would I take
this course again? No. Was it a good experience and useful? Yes.