Etheridge 1

Alexus Etheridge
Prof. Anna Deadrick
English 102
09 May 2016
Reflection
English 102 is a class to help us further develop our writing skills. In this course there
were three main areas that we had to cover; effective writing, information literacy, and critical
analysis and reasoning. I do believe that we were taught everything to cover these topics because
we completed essays that successfully fulfil the topics.
In the syllabus, the first section of goals that are mentioned is under the category
Effective Writing. The goals of this category are that us students need to write papers that meet
college level standards, write using rhetorical strategies, write for multiple audiences (or orally),
and to formulate a developed thesis. Most of these requirements were met. For example, in my
essay Hateful Eight, I had to argue against or for Bogarts argument being strongly proven.
This essay is a womans response to seeing the movie The Hateful Eight, and how she
basically feels as if Tarantino (the director) has degraded women by making this movie. My
thesis was that she did because she backed her opinion up emotionally and logically. The way
she backed her opinion up emotionally by stating how the film was extremely abusive to women
and the reader could feel how insulted she was by this. She backed herself up logically by stating
the obvious fact that the abuse throughout the movie was very misogynistic and was establishing
male dominance from the very beginning. I refuted it by saying how people would think this is
biased because she is a woman. To strike back at my refutation I said how nobody quite
understands misogyny like women do. It is hard for others to put themselves in other peoples
shoes, which is why some men cannot understand misogyny.

Etheridge 2

The next section was Information Literacy. In this section we basically had to find
scholarly sources to use for an essay, not plagiarize, find legitimate things to argue, and think of
questions about it. This section was definitely met due to the Exploratory Paper. My exploratory
paper called, Animal Testing was about animal testing in general, meaning the background and
both sides of the issue. The things I wanted to argue about is the reliably, ethics, and benefits of
animal testing. In this essay I had to find reliable sources that would help me formulate questions
toward these arguments for research paper. Once I found these sources I had to explain how these
sources would add to the essay. In the exploratory paper we did not choose a side to argue on, it
was just establishing a base. To avoid plagiarism I put a Works Cited page as always, and I did
not paraphrase.
The final section was Critical Analysis and Reasoning. This section was about
analyzing readings, hearing all sides of the argument and then picking my own side, developing
an argument, and avoiding incorrect information. An example of my work that has to do with
analyzing readings is my Hateful Eight paper. In that essay the author Laura Bogart is speaking
to an audience of people who have seen many Tarantino movies, and/or women. She is very
agitated throughout the essay but lightens up in the middle when talking about Tarantinos better
movies. Moving on to the other topics that were met in this section, an example that meets them
is my Research Paper. This paper is arguing why animal testing is no longer needed in the
medical field. Prior to picking that side on the topic, I had to look at why it was used in the
industry and other alternatives to it. This topic was hard to find solid sources, because this topic
is an emotional topic. Sometimes people put too much of their emotions into it than actual facts.
Once I found reliable sources it was pretty simple to come up with an argument against animal
testing.

Etheridge 3

Though most of the goals were met, some were not. One of these goals was that we were
supposed to identify audiences in oral assignments. I do not recall ever having an oral
assignment. Another one that was not completely met was that we were supposed to analyze
MULTIPLE viewpoints on a topic. This was hard to do for my research paper because for my
topic there is only two sides, either you are for or you are against animal testing. Those were the
only two that stuck out to me as something I feel was unaccomplished.
Since most of the requirements in the effective writing, information literacy, and critical
analysis and reasoning categories, I feel as if this semester was a success. I was able to portray
what I learned through my papers for this class. Hopefully my writing has strengthened as well
and I will definitely be applying some of the things learned in this class towards future classes.

Works Cited

Etheridge 4

Etheridge, Alexus. Animal Testing. Unpublished Paper. Rockville, MD. 2016.

---. Hateful Eight. Unpublished Paper. Rockville, MD. 2016.
---. Value of Life. Unpublished Paper. Rockville, MD. 2016.