Final Self Reflection
Sindy Hernandez
Department of Science, The City College of New York
ENGL 21007
Professor Sara Jacobson
Throughout the course, I have written many pieces of writing: the letter, lab report, technical description, and group proposal. In each paper, I enhanced my skills and learned what it means to write formally. I was able to learn more about myself as a writer and student. In the beginning, it was difficult since my skills were not as sharp, and I struggled with properly citing sources. I found certain assignments more difficult than others because of how much reading was required to complete them. However, each paper was a chance where I was tested to my limits and see how well I could write and write collaboratively with group members. What changed is that I found working with others more enjoyable than I did before.
Since my work as a student will be the subject of this paper, I want to start with my introduction to Professor Jacobson. In the letter I wanted my audience to know who I was in a way that was authentic. This letter made me think about my audience’s expectations and about the rhetorical situation. First, I knew that I had to think about how to format my letter in a way that would flow nicely to the audience. This letter was also something that I was passionate about because the topic was about who I am, which may seem easy if you knew how to start or what to say. Thinking about the rhetorical situation when I wrote my letter made me think about my stance and the attitude that I want to have in my writing. I wanted the attitude to be warm and welcoming as well as passionate. That is why I stated, “Being the daughter of two immigrant parents I can say that life has never been boring. Enriched by my culture and family I have always found love in the smallest things. Enriched by my culture and family I have always found love in the smallest things.” These sentences would give a warm attitude to my letter because I started off by mentioning how I grew up and how that helped shape who I am. I displayed my passion when I stated, “Although I have had plenty of experience with coding, I do not want to major in computer science… I discovered my passion for learning about environmental science through all the horticulture work that I did.” Although I had to think about rhetorical situations, I did not get the chance to work on my citation skill, but that was okay because I got to see how much thought must be put into even the simplest forms of writing, such as a letter.
The next assignment we had to complete was the lab report which I found difficult just because of the amount of time I took to complete it. This assignment tested my use of online databases and my source use practices. Since I had to annotate both lab reports (which were long) I had to make sure that I was gathering the information I needed and citing it correctly when referencing it in my paper. Not only was finding my evidence and citing my source important but also my formatting and editing. When I first began writing my rough draft, I already knew what I wanted each paragraph to be like and how I would be able to compare both lab reports based on how they presented their information. Albeit it was hard at first for me to understand how to compare both reports without comparing their information. It was more about how it was presented and what they did with it. After figuring out how I wanted to format the paper, I had to read both reports which were on the influence that habitat and biodiversity had on pathogen prevalence in pollinator diseases. The bee’s environment and biodiversity could cause said pollinators to contract certain diseases. I displayed my ability of successfully analyzing my sources in my introduction and in my other paragraphs. In my lab report analysis, I stated, “They both used 3-43-4 different species of bees to find how the different species would react to the different habitats as well as biodiversity. They also look to find what species abundance and species richness may have.” Here, I demonstrate my general understanding of both reports and their relation to each other. Later, I will go more in-depth as to which diseases they were looking for which were DWV-A, DWV-B, and ABPV (Acute Bee Paralysis Virus). This assignment was definitely a learning experience for me. I usually like writing lab reports, but it was new for me because I had to talk about it formatting.
After having completed the lab report analysis, the technical description was more fun for me because it was about breaking apart a product. Being fond of Tamagotchi, I decided to choose that as the subject of my paper. This assignment involved a lot of research because I had to investigate the history of Tamagotchi, the various products they have (there are a lot of versions), its use, and why it is important. Because of this, I had to do a lot of citing, especially with the images that I used since I decided to not break apart my own Tamagotchi. I was not accustomed to citing images, so that is something I got to work on in this assignment. In the technical description, I wrote, “Note. The Tamagotchi without its battery casing. From Tamagotchi Surgery, by Ed T. Toton III, 1997. (http://necrobones.com/tamasurg/). Copyright 1997, Ed T. Toton III.” For this citation, I had to look at Purdue to see how to cite the image, but I gathered all the information I needed and gave a proper citation. In some cases, I did not have certain information that I needed but there was a solution for it. In the technical description, I also wrote, “Note. Demon Slayer growth chart. From Demon Slayer Tamagotchi, by Fandom (n.d) (https://tamagotchi.fandom.com/wiki/Demon_Slayer_Tamagotchi/Character_list).” In this citation, I didn’t have the date I needed so I substituted it was n.d. Not only was the citation important but so was understanding what I was reading to properly format my technical description so that it can be readable and flow. This assignment tested me the most on my ability to cite images repetitively.
After completing many assignments alone, I was used to only reading my work and editing it. With the group proposal, I was pushed to a new extent because I had to work with my peers to create a product of our own. This allowed me to see the range of my peers and my linguistic differences as resources and how we made sense of it. Extensive research had to be done because we had to not only think about a product but also find comparable products to bash on and find materials and cost as well as the target audience for our product. We saw that we all had different strengths and from there we were able to designate certain roles to one another for the written portion of the proposal. I was better at thinking about the target audience, the design, competitors, and how we could make our product different. With our differences, we found a way to format our paper so that it would flow better. Also, while doing the research, which was something I did not know much about to begin with, I had to not only read but also watch videos to grasp a better understanding of the topic. That helped me during the presentation because I had it engraved in my head. In the proposal, I stated, “As for our performance, our rim dynamo produces 2w@11kph, 3w@13-15kph, 4w@17-20kph, and 5w@20-25kph compared to the average which is 2w@12-15kph, 3@15-25, 4w@17-25, and 5w@25-35.” Here, I showed the readers my understanding of how typical dynamos perform and how many watts they produce and how our product would outperform theirs. This assignment was something new for me because I have never created a product with a group of people so it was nice to see how we could all work together and see how we could all contribute.
This course provided me with the opportunity to test my limits and to surprise myself with what I can do. Disregarding the writing aspect, I also had to present with my group which went better than my other presentation with my group last semester. I consider that an accomplishment because I was contemptuous of how I performed in my presentation. Back to the writing aspect, I was always pushed to do something I was not usually comfortable with which is good because it allowed me to grow. Citing has always been something awkward for me, but I was able to get more comfortable with it. Even though mybib exists, it can still be difficult to cite a source multiple times in one paragraph without it sounding choppy and staggard. My citing got better throughout the course. I feel like my citation for the lab report was not as good as I could have done. I was also able to get more comfortable with writing collaboratively with others and recognizing each other’s strengths. This allowed me to know what role to play and what research to do to complete the assignment. I will take what I learned in this class and use it in the future because I know it is essential.
