Ryan Costanza

Professor Jessica Zisa

Writing 2 - Academic Writing

21 March 2023

Reflective Letter

Dear Reader,

I worked on two writing projects over the course of the last 3 months. These were the

biggest projects that I have ever worked on in my life, not by length but by effort and time spent

researching, writing, and revising. My first project is a podcast script that contains the

information from an academic article about artificial intelligence. Throughout the process of

making this first project, I have to properly convert all rhetorical aspects of a peer-reviewed

article into a much more casual podcast script. This meant altering stylistic devices of the article

to mesh with the new purpose, intended audience, and context of the podcast. For my next

project, I chose to listen in on conversation about the proper methods for teaching writing

between scholars who wrote academic articles. I developed the personalities and ideas of each

individual author while considering how they interact with one another through their writing. I

formed these connections in a blog post where I shared not only their ideas but also the ideas that

I had formed myself as the listener. Another thing I considered was the potential for new

listeners to expand the conversation in the future either with new research or new ideas just as I

had. These two projects come together to demonstrate what I have learned over the past quarter.

Over the course of this class, I have developed many skills that have brought me to a new

peak of writing skills. In my opinion, the greatest contributor to my growth as a writer was

studying successful writing strategies and practicing them immediately after in our Project
Builders for the Writing Projects. As a student, my memory functions best when I am able to use

new concepts in a dynamic real-world situation within a reasonable amount of time after they

were taught, so I really thrived with these learning methods. I also really enjoyed talking about

the readings in small groups because I would almost always end up coming to new conclusions

after hearing my peers’ perspectives.

Before taking this course, I viewed writing as a daunting task that I had to push through

in order to complete my education. Now, everytime I read or write I see it as an opportunity to

learn new skills or improve upon old ones. Learning about genre really changed my entire

perception of writing as a whole because it made me realize just how many different conventions

there are that define each individual piece of writing within a specific genre. I utilized my

developing understanding of rhetorical situations in my writing projects by trying to correctly

represent the context, purpose, and audience using conventions such as word choice, style, tone,

and structure so that they fit my intended genre. In the future, as I engage with more reading and

writing, I want to continue expanding my rhetorical awareness and apply it to any writing I do by

thinking about the respective genre and working to address the context, audience, and purpose

the same way I did with the Writing Projects.

One of the greatest strengths that I feel like I have developed is refining a piece of writing

to target an intended audience. Both of our Writing Projects involved this skill to some extent

and it was the aspect of this class that came the most natural to me. Lisa Bickmore offers her

perspective on writing for an intended audience, “Not everyone who writes a proposal will

choose to use narrative—the narrative strategy is a way that you might imagine your audience

and that audience’s response, aiming for a livelier and more engaged response.” (Bickmore 1). I

learned from this quote that it is important to view your writing from the eyes of your intended
audience. Use your knowledge to predict how your intended audience would react to and

perceive your writing so you can receive the best result. I used tone and word choice to the best

of my ability, making my writing projects evoke the emotional response that I wanted from my

intended audience. “Host: I’m imagining a hotel where I walk in and I’m surrounded by robots…

I’d get freaked out! It would be like a zombie apocalypse except instead of trying to eat you they

tell you the best restaurants around town.” I used this line in my Writing Project 1 as comedic

relief to break up the monotony of everything around it. Even though it does not really provide

any important information, it increases the appeal of my writing to my intended audience

through their emotions.

Reading my own writing and finding flaws was possibly the most difficult challenge for

me. I found it extremely difficult to step back and look at my own work and edit it past making

minor tweaks. Joseph Harris provides several strategies for this such as “What Works? Revising

as Forwarding… What Else Might be Said? Revising as Countering… What’s Next? Revising as

Looking Ahead… “ (Harris 113-116). These are section headings under which he details

different revision strategies. I have found it most effective to step back after drafting and trying

to read my work as an unaffiliated reader while considering all of Harris’s tips. One strategy of

revision that he highlights is “Revising as Forwarding” which means to build off of what works

instead of fixing what does not. I attempted to use this tactic in my Writing Project 2 blog post

by expanding on an existing connection between two of the articles instead of trying to force a

new one into existence. I still struggle with separating myself as the author when I revise but I

have hope for the future and know it is a skill I can improve upon through practice.

Going forward with my writing career, revision is what I would like to improve upon the

most. I believe that being able to understand and learn from your own flaws is a key factor in
becoming a better writer. Doug Downs describes writing as not just a form of editing and

proofreading, but rather a comprehensive approach that involves rethinking and reimaging the

entire writing piece. He states that “Novice or unreflective writers, especially students, may see

revision as punishment for poor performance. Being told to write again or write more, especially

if the assigned writing has little intrinsic value to the writer or is used primarily to judge them

may hardly seem like a positive opportunity.” (Downs 67). This quote resonates with me because

I always viewed the editing and revision process as fixing things that are definitely wrong with

my writing, a punishment for my shortcomings. I would like to continue learning about revision

and how it is an ongoing process that requires a willingness to make significant changes. I have

learned that even seemingly perfect pieces of writing can benefit from revision and look forward

to increasing my revising skillset in the future.

 Works Cited

Adler-Kassner, Linda, and Elizabeth Wardle. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of

Writing Studies. Utah State University Press, 2015.

Bickmore, Lisa. “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”

Open English SLCC, Open English @ SLCC, 1 Aug. 2016,

https://pressbooks.pub/openenglishatslcc/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-

within-rhetorical-ecosystems/.

Harris, Joseph. Rewriting. University Press of Colorado, 2006.