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Alexandra Rodriguez

Monica Rodriguez

English 1302

3 May 2022

Final Reflection Essay

Throughout this entire semester in the English 1302 class, I feel as though I have been

able to truly progress as a writer more than ever. I came across many trials and errors when it

came to writing my essays, brainstorming on what to write about, having writer’s block, not

knowing whether I would have the ability to meet the word count without adding filler

information, and lots of frustration. Although coming across these tough patches throughout the

semester would give one the feeling of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction for not being able to

achieve the perfect paper, I for one am very grateful for being able to truly learn from my

mistakes and delivering pieces of papers that I never would have thought I would be able to

accomplish.

While having to revise each essay, every writer must make sure to use rhetorical choices

in order to properly execute a paper that is appealing and perfectly understood by their target

audience. The rhetorical choices I decided to use for each essay were all three rhetorical choices

which are ethos, logos, and pathos. For essay one, the prompt was to conduct an experiment for

three to five days to see what kind of reaction I would get in my body, then find an article that

would back up or support my argument. I chose to do my experiment on the importance of not

viewing an electronic device before going to bed. This experiment made a great impact not only

on my health but overall life. In essay one, page three, I write about the positive changes I had

instantaneously felt during the first night. I provided an article supporting my findings which is
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why I believe that logos was a great rhetorical choice to add. Not to mention that the writers of

the scholarly articles that I chose were either doctors or researchers in that specific field of study,

making the article, as well as the essay very reliable. I also included in-text citations in case the

reader was still a bit skeptical. Additionally, having ethos be part of the essay as well makes the

paper a lot more credible because I was the one who was conducting the research experiment on

myself, making me the most credible because I obtained the knowledge of everything I was

experiencing during the five days of the experiment. For the second essay, we had to select a

topic that interested us on both an academic and personal level and find more than ten sources of

the chosen topic that argue from different perspectives, then analyze how the research fits with

all the other sources. The topic I chose was health issues involving childhood obesity. I wrote

about the opinions of multiple doctors and researchers on why they believe childhood obesity

happens. Many had similar views but the majority were contrasting. Nonetheless, they all agreed

stating if a child does not get the help it needs to lose weight, it can develop many cardiovascular

diseases, diabetes, and many more life-threatening diseases. The rhetorical device being used is

pathos because it is instilling a sense of fear into the child to try and get them to understand that

their bad habits can have great consequences. Logos is another rhetorical choice I was able to

implement into the essay. Because we had to use at least six sources, I was able to find reliable

scholarly articles to provide and back up my evidence. This also applies to ethos because all the

authors of the articles I chose are either doctors or researchers in that specific field, which makes

them incredibly reliable and credible. Finally, the topic for the last essay was to use the same

topic that was researched for essay two and create our own stance on the chosen topic to create

an argument that convinces the reader that my position is correct. As mentioned before, I chose

the topic of health issues involving childhood obesity. I was able to incorporate all three
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rhetorical choices in this essay because of the fact that the scholarly articles that were chosen all

agreed with what I believed. This was that a child (or anyone who has too much weight on them)

can develop dangerously life-threatening diseases because of the fat that is surrounding their

organs, making their heart work twice as hard. This is using pathos to instill fear to try and make

the children change the way they view food and was to change the way they live their life. Logos

is also incorporated into the essay by providing an article for each reason that I believe why

obesity can happen in children. This will try and persuade the reader as well as the audience to

make a conscious decision in changing to a healthier diet as well as lifestyle. Ethos can also be

incorporated because all the authors of the articles that I found are doctors and researchers in that

specific field like it was described above.

While designing my website on the app Weebly, I came to the conclusion and decided to

incorporate ethos into my portfolio. The reason why I decided to do this is that I am the one who

went through with the personal experiment, the one who found every article for exam two to try

and make it credible, as well as finding articles to support my claim on why I believe obesity

rates are dramatically increasing in children for the past few years. Not only that, but I am the

one who did all the homework assignments, annotated bibliography, essays, and invention

worksheets. I designed the website with what I believed would look best, what homework

assignments to add, and how to organize everything. I also tried giving the website an easy-to-

navigate structure to make it easy for my professor to find each and every homework assignment,

essay, and reflection. My goal was to try and make the website easy to use because I did not

want other students to have a hard time trying to maneuver through and not be able to find what

they are looking for. I wanted it to be very helpful for other students and have them trust me in

knowing what would be best to add and how to add it.

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As I was going about the class, I had to do homework assignments for each week of the

semester to try and help us with our upcoming essay. While doing so, one would realize that

many rhetorical choices play a major role in the things one does. A few homework assignments

or activities that influenced my decision-making when deciding what homework to add to my

portfolio were the scholarly articles that had to be done during week 2. The reason why this

homework assignment really stood out to me was that it really made you think as to why you

should choose a specific article when trying to search for one to use for an essay. As well as

ways to figure out what to look for to see if the article should be trusted or not. Typically, one

would want to go to the TAMIU database or Google Scholar to try and find trusted, peer-

reveiwed scholarly articles to limit the time one has to glance through the article to see if it is

reliable or not. This has made it much easier for me to find articles to use for my essays because

I know that they are only from a trusted source, so I know I am going to be providing my

professor with nothing but quality work.

As one continues and finishes a class whether it be an online class, in-person, elementary,

middle school, high school, or graduate school, there is always something that will be learned

and that will be taken with them to be applied somewhere else. There has been an incredible

amount of techniques I have learned in my 1302 class. For starters and probably the most

obvious, my writing skills. I have stunned myself with how much my writing has improved

compared to my high school essays. I have grown so much as a writer, all thanks to my English

professors. On the less obvious side, I also learned that you are not supposed to start a paragraph

with a citation, a topic sentence is needed in order to give the reader a glimpse of what the essay

is going to be about. Along with that, there were many more things I learned that I am able to

apply to other courses to improve my writing but also future grades.

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Along with the many things I learned in the English 1302 class that can be applied to

other courses, sadly, there are things I learned that cannot be applied anywhere else. One of them

is being able to resubmit the essay, getting feedback, and having the chance to resubmit it. Other

class courses would not allow this and would only let the student submit the essay one time. Not

only that, but other courses would not do the same writing process as an English class would. For

example, there would be no peer review workshop, instructor feedback in between drafts, etc.

Every individual has many strengths and weaknesses, and the way one is able to combat

those weaknesses is by constantly practicing until they are able to get it right. This is similar to

the writing process of creating an essay. The more essays one writes, the closer they are to

achieving the perfect paper. Personally, a few strengths I have noticed that I have developed over

the course of the semester has been how quickly I am able to come up with an idea to write about

and complete the essay that same day. Although the word count can be difficult at times, the

feeling of accomplishment overrides my body when I am able to complete it and know that I

have tried my absolute best. Additionally to that, I am able to catch my mistakes if I accidentally

type a pronoun and make a comma on the wrong spot. All of these little things add up so I can

create a paper that I am extremely proud of.

Like many homework assignments, exams, courses, etc. there will always be something

that is incredibly challenging, as well as something that is not as challenging. When it comes to

the website and having to design my portfolio, the most challenging aspect of it is how time-

consuming it is to design everything perfectly, deciding what pictures to add onto what file,

while homework assignments to add, how to organize everything, adding a link to each

assignment, etc. However, something that came easy was uploading all the necessary documents
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onto their designated areas. Since all of the assignments were done, all I had to do was look for

them and add them to their designated links.

Like many things in life, once you become better at something, it changes the way you

are towards it to try and become better. Personally, I believe my identity as a writer has

drastically changed. As I mentioned previously, I have grown so much as a writer. There are

essays that I complete that leave me in shock because I know I would have never been able to

achieve this back in high school or even last semester. Between the very first draft to my last

revised essay 3 draft, I can tell that there has been a great improvement, which is something that

I am very proud of myself for accomplishing. This is something that I will continue to work on

even if I do not take any more English classes because of the self-growth I want to continue to

achieve as far as my writing goes.

To complete this reflection essay, there are many things I have learned during the course

of this semester that I will be able to take with me and apply to other courses in the future of my

academic career. Writing is something I will never not come in contact with because it is

something that we see and do every day whether we think about it or not. I know I will continue

to become a better writer, thanks to my great professor and all the wonderful and helpful

feedback that was provided for me to learn and grow.