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Lorenzo Luna

ENGL 1301-115

Dr. Sharity Nelson

17 November 2023

Reflection Essay #3

Our final essay dealt with the revision of journal articles, something that I have never

done in my life. At first it seemed like a tall task having to write about another piece written by

someone we have no connection to. Prior to this our analysis had been about visual analyzing

instead of inspecting writing so that was quite the curveball. At the end of the day I did grow

from this as I can now better break down elements and components when reading journal

articles. There were some forks in the road, but I tried my absolute hardest to get this paper to the

best it could possibly be.

Rhetorical analysis can be applied to nearly every form of writing or media in existence.

Being able to decipher who the audience is, how the author is trying to convey to the reader, and

what is the underlying message hidden under the text. When analyzing the journal article I was

originally overwhelmed by the amount of statistics and numbers thrown my way. I wasn’t

expecting there to be so many, but when I started breaking down the article into bits I was better

able to digest the whole thing. I can apply this to my other readings, let's say in either my math

or history classes. I was never great with numbers, so isolating each part of the equation and

getting consistent with the process can help me become a better problem solver. In my history

classes I can find ancient scriptures or articles written in often “proper english” and nearly half

the time I cannot understand it. With my newfound knowledge, I am better able to decipher my

readings to get clear understandings of what I am reading.

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Revision and editing has always been a strong point for me as I am a much better editor

when I have time to reset and review my work. My initial strategy was to not include citations

the first go around because I would get frustrated having to flip back and forth between pages, so

I left placeholders in every paragraph with the intention to come back to them. Knowing it was

only my rough draft and not relying on perfection helped me lock in more when it came to

revising as I came back with my goals in mind.

Conferencing with your instructor is often the best source of information as they have

been doing this for years on end. Unfortunately, I was never able to conference due to personal

conflicts and classes clashing. I don’t anticipate anything like this happening to me again and I

feel like it greatly impacted my performance on this essay. I did the best I possibly could

utilizing every resource I could. At the end of the day I wish my conflicts wouldn’t have

impacted my essay the way they did.

Peer reviewing is often how I grow the most as we are both in the same boat and are both

students who are in need of guidance. Learning from your peers is healthy as it’s another pair of

eyes to help you fix your essay. My partner happened to do an essay on galaxy formations which

is an entirely different genre than what I decided to do with football injuries. Despite genre

differences grammar rules stay the same. Ensuring the audience was addressed properly was

crucial and making sure that it was consistent throughout both essays was imperative. Also

ensuring plagiarism was kept at a minimum was crucial as in college you can receive severe

punishments and consequences. In order to avoid that we had to spot check citations and make

sure to give credit when credit was due.

Drawing connections in the essay is critical as everything needs to feel like a smooth

web. At points I felt like I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of the essay because I was missing
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some guidance. Working with my resources to ensure my essay ran seamlessly was of utmost

importance to ensure there was growth happening in this essay compared to my other essays. I

had to cut out a lot of unnecessary information regarding ideas that were never stated in the

journal and my own takes that I already had prior knowledge of. The audience would have no

clue what I was talking about if they were to read the journal entry and then my essay due to this

fallacy.

Every essay comes with its own challenges, but without a doubt this one was by far my

biggest challenge yet. It was more demanding in regards to the needs of the essay. Reading a

journal article, picking it apart, and then adding citation to it without plagiarizing was a big

demand that I feel I did accomplish. On top of that personally I had a lot of elements not going

into my favor which did affect my ability to make this essay my best, but I was able to overcome

the adversity thrown my way. Knowing how to cite direct lines in my work challenged me most

when it came to actually writing the essay and it is evident. I did my best in regards to that as

well. The student examples were extremely beneficial and guided me in the right direction as

those papers are ideal ways an essay of this genre should turn out.

Despite this paper being the most difficult, a reoccuring theme for me is being able to

write a lot of great ideas. While it can get a bit excessive, that is when revising and editing comes

into place to trim the fat to make sure the connections I wanted to achieve are accomplished. Just

picking and choosing what is most important and eliminating the bloat came easy to me as I feel

like an entirely different writer when I have a chance to rest and lock in with my goals in mind.

This paper had a fair share of difficulties and tasks achieved with ease. Knowing what my

weaknesses were and pinpointing what they were helped guided me in the right direction.

Despite some forks in the road, I overcame them and showed growth all throughout my paper.
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While there are elements that still need to be fixed, I can ensure they will be attended to when it

comes to my other classes as those problems won’t suddenly disappear overnight. This essay was

truly the one where I felt the most growth and am glad it came towards the end of the semester

when we can help reflect and look back at our journey until now.