He 1

Robert He

WRIT 2

Chajdas

December 6, 2019

Reflective Letter

Dear Tym,

When I first signed up for WRIT 2, I expected the class to be a repeat of my AP

Language and Composition class back in high school. Before attending class, I honestly expected

a lot of busywork and felt this class would be very, very easy. However, many times, I found

myself struggling in the class and with my own writing. As I learned more about genres,

conventions, and rhetoric in this class, I realized there was still much more for me to learn.

One of my main takeaways from WRIT 2 is recognizing the significance of peer review.

In my writing projects, I did not realize how much unnecessary information and ambiguities

there were in my writing until I got feedback from a reader. Initially, I found it difficult to

expand upon my existing ideas. I thought I had written everything there was to write about my

arguments but apparently not. It is interesting how I have not identified certain flaws while

working on my rough draft. As Mike Bunn, author of “How to Read Like a Writer”, explains,

“The goal is to carefully consider the choices the author made and the techniques that he or she

used, and then decide whether you want to make those same choices or use those same

techniques in your own writing.”1 From reading others’ essays, I have identified a myriad of

different writing styles and vocabulary that I could apply for myself. With peer review, I have

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​Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer”. Writing 2 Chajdas Academic Writing
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adapted others’ writing styles to my own, and this is one of the most significant activities that

helped me grow as a writer.

I was never the best at putting these ideas into words; this is probably my biggest

weakness when it comes to writing. What seemed clear to me was not to others, especially if

they know very little about my chosen topic. Also, I still feel my vocabulary is very elementary,

but I am working on building up this aspect of my writing. However, I feel my biggest strength

in writing has to be my understanding of rhetoric. In the article “Ten Ways To Think About

Writing”, author E. Shelley Reid explains that “you can quickly come up with just the right

words and information to match that audience’s needs.”2 When writing, I am now more picky

with the words and sentence structures I use. I consider how specific choices influence the reader

and which choice would have the most significant effect on the reader. For example, I start my

Writing Project #2 with the sentence “Since the rapid growth of our information and

technologically driven world, the Computer Science discourse community has never been more

important.” This sentence sets the formal tone for the entire essay and is a good hook allowing

readers to continue reading the rest of the essay. The dependent clause adds a bit of

“sophistication” in a way to the sentence while supporting the main idea. Now, I am trying to

improve on both my strengths and weakness through my personal projects.

In the end, I have decided to revise Writing Project #1 and Writing Project #2. Not only

are these two essays my earliest works, but I feel they have the most number of flaws within

them.

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​Reid, E. Shelley. “Ten Ways to Think About Writing”. Writing 2 Chajdas Academic Writing
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In Writing Project #2, there were many ambiguities and flawed analysis. For instance, my

initial thesis was “Programming courses, research universities, and networking companies best

contribute to the overall success of the Computer Science discourse community.” To others,

“success” is very ambiguous since success can be used in a variety of different contexts. Success

can be attributed to one’s breakthroughs, popularity, impact on society, and such, so my main

point was not too clear. I also substituted the term “best contribute” for “constitute” as I have no

authority to say what “best” contributes to the success of a discourse community only being a

student of the field. When writing academic papers, Laura Bolin Carroll explains that “In order

to perform analysis, you must understand the context and then you must carefully study the ways

that the discourse does and does not respond appropriately to that context.”3 My paper is meant

for fellow scholars of the Computer Science field. However, my body paragraph explaining

graduate universities was too general of a topic and could apply to any chosen discipline or field.

This topic does not appropriately appeal to these scholars, so I had to write a whole new body

paragraph explaining a different topic.

In Writing Project #1, my writing initially sounded very unsophisticated and had an

informal tone. My introduction, especially, was very elementary writing. I started my essay with

“Table Tennis is one of my favorite sports. It has been a part of my history and character

development for the past twelve years of my life.” This sentence has nothing to do with genres or

conventions, so it was out of place and needed to be changed. The tone of this sentence also

contradicts the formal tone needed of the prompt. Additionally, my citations took up a big

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​Carroll,
Laura Bolin. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis”. Writing 2
Chajdas Academic Writing
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portion of my essay. As a result, I shortened my citations, cutting out any unnecessary

information, while still conveying the same idea. The quantity of quotations in my essay is more

than needed, and it feels like they exist only to extend my essay, which was not the initial

intention.

Writing has always just felt like busywork to me. However, upon taking WRIT 2, I have

realized a greater significance that writing has in our society. After learning more about the

significance of audience, genres, and conventions, I found that it has allowed my writing to

become much more compelling. The readings had a significant impact on my development as a

writer as well. They taught me situational awareness in writing, and how different writing

choices can yield varying responses from an audience. Now, I learned to better reflect on the

choices I make when writing and how these choices influence the reader, whether that is word

choice, style, or rhetorical awareness. I would, however, still like to know more about how to

write more vividly and experimenting with language to create more vivid writing. I will apply

these newfound skills that I have developed for my other classes, personal reflections, and life.

Best,

Robert He
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Bibliography

1. Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer”. Writing 2 Chajdas Academic Writing

2. Reid, E. Shelley. “Ten Ways to Think About Writing”. Writing 2 Chajdas Academic

Writing

3. Carroll, Laura Bolin. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis”.

Writing 2 Chajdas Academic Writing