In Writing for the Social Sciences, I was exposed to many new genres of writing, and different types of research. It was hard work, but I learned a lot. Below is my self-reflection which explains what I learned on every paper in congruence with the course learning outcomes.

Course Learning Outcomes

Over the course of the semester, you will:

• acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility
• enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment
• negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation
• develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
• engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond
• formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing
• practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects
• strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources)

                               Finding Focus

This English class pushed me both conceptually and in terms of improving my writing. The class was centered around a type of writing that I had never been exposed to before. The writing was built around my interactions with the group I observed and interviewed, Feminism for All. This focus on my perspective and analysis of situations would have been practically sacrilegious in another English class with their desire to omit the I to obtain objectivity. Because of that, I was learning a completely new skill. When you are learning something new, you never start out perfect and I certainly did not. There was a learning curve throughout this process. By the end, I had a much better grasp of the writing process through the use of the course learning outcomes.

Being able to have others comment on my writing was a huge benefit. Throughout the semester I was able to have my classmates read and respond to my writing. We all have different perspectives and writing styles. Because of this, they were able to point out my blind spots when I did not. With the research proposal, we did not have the time to have our peers respond to our writing, which I think probably hurt our writing on this assignment. I think that the more eyes on the assignment the better it will be. With the observation and interview essays, we were able to have them peer-reviewed and it was beneficial to have two different opinions. This helped me to see where the opinions were similar and where they differed, so I could fix my writing further.

With our peer groups, and the class as a whole I was able to bounce ideas off them and get opinions on my plans, and my writing. I was able to reciprocate this and give my opinions when my classmates asked. Through this process, my classmates were able to help with places to observe, suggestions on topics to research, and suggestions on our writing. For the research proposal, I was very grateful I could go over my thesis statement with my peer group. They helped with wording and making sure that it was not too big. They also helped with my interview questions. Hearing what they were going to ask helped me to expand my own list. The fact that we could exchange papers and ask for opinions on them was very helpful especially when I was stuck.
For me, the hardest part of writing is the reading/revising process. I struggle with finding distance and perspective from my own writing. I end up rationalizing possible mistakes. This course helped me understand how to revise better, through learning about the insider vs. outsider perspective. This helped me to read all my work with a more objective mind. With the research proposal, I did not really grasp this. My writing struggled with being understandable to a person who was not me. And since I was not writing for myself that was an issue. With the observation and interview essays I think that I was better at making my writing understandable, but also, I was better at organizing my thoughts. Sometimes I get carried away and include too many ideas within a paragraph and the paper as a whole. In my research paper drafts, I included extraneous ideas that were related but did not add to my research as a whole. Finally, to reinforce everything that I had learned I made a presentation on the process and important skills to remember.

In terms of negotiating my writing goals with the audience concerning genre, medium, and rhetorical situation, I do not think this was a particular struggle for me, only because I try not to make any goals before I know who my audience is, and what my genre is. I try to make my goals after this to prevent my writing from not fulfilling the assignment. Topic is the instance where I do lose track of my goals and my audience sometimes. Sometimes I lose sight of my original topic. By the interview essay, staying on topic was a focus of mine. I try to be more critical of what I add to my essays. With this in mind from the beginning, my essays require less work later on.

Through the curriculum, the class had me explore genres that I had not been exposed to before. The interview was a very new genre for me. Understanding the balance between narrative and making sure that I had all the information was difficult. I wanted to keep my reader engaged, but also make sure that they know everything they are supposed to. This was an issue for me with the observation and interview essays. This is because I had to reconcile my own opinions and observations with the narrative. And in the interview essay, I had the added struggle of balancing Ms. Injeian’s answers. Luckily, because of the classmate interview, I had been exposed to the genre. I lacked analysis in that essay, so I knew to address that this time. Also, taking notes and observations and turning that into these papers was very new to me. It was a good experience in figuring out how to analyze situations to answer our overarching question. The research paper was more academic and required writing that was less narrative and more thorough analysis of research to frame my work.

My problem is not writing a thesis. I can usually write a solid thesis. Where I fall short sometimes is having everything following relate back to that thesis. I end up including information that does not also work well in relation to the thesis. This a common theme throughout my writing. I lose my focus throughout the paper. In my research paper, I lacked some information that was needed for the audience to fully understand how I was supporting my thesis. With the observation essay, I missed the mark on analyzing some parts as to how they related back to my thesis.

When I was first asked to use library sources to find evidence I needed for a paper it was intimidating. When I was asked to use these sources for my research paper, I was more comfortable with the databases that the library provides and how to properly access. The papers that I found were critical for making the research paper have a valid argument. Here I needed solid sources to back up my claims. It was also important that these sources were from reputable journals, which is why the library sources are the best to use because they filtered out the papers that are not appropriate for the work I was doing.

I have learned new genres of writing, such as an interview profile, and the research profile. I have learned how to find an angle for both my observation and interview essay’s and how to properly frame research. I also learned how to do ethnographic research. Transitioning that research into writing was all new to me as well. I continued in improving my writing skills that apply to any form, such as writing and supporting my thesis, finding proper evidence, and revising better. My organization of papers in a way that made sense suffered sometimes, especially when I lost my focus. I worked on improving that through improving my revising techniques and planning. Hopefully, the effort I put into this class shows.