Dear Neil,

Welcome to my writing reflection, where I present a detailed account of the experiences

and insights I obtained from you and the writing course I took this past quarter. The first writing

project required me to read an academic article and translate it into another genre of writing. The

academic article explored different tactics brands used to trigger impulsive shopping, especially

in Generation Z women, and their effects on consumers and brands. With this information as my

basis, I translated the findings into a newspaper article by the New York Times. For the second

writing project, I read a collection of academic journals where the authors explain how writer’s

block affects students and offer solutions. I gathered all of their arguments and insight and

translated them into a dialogue-style conversation between English teachers where they each

stated their position. I hope you enjoy reading about my journey through this course and the

creative writing process I took for each writing project!

One of the ways you prepared me for this class and the future, was teaching me how to read

academic texts. In my first draft of writing project one, I submitted the assignment believing I

not only successfully understood the academic article but also translated it into a news article

effectively. I had never done this before and yet through this writing project I was able to

drastically improve my ability to understand complex texts and write about them in a

non-academic context. I included an image for the article, the iconic New York Times title, and

other convections I believed were the most important. However, once I received your feedback

and began the editing process for this final portfolio, I then realized how much I missed and did

not consider including. Instead of simply summarizing the research conducted in chronological
order, I only included the most engaging pieces of information that contributed to the overall

message I was trying to convey in the news article translation. As a news article, I also could not

simply rely on one source, so in the second edit, I included two more sources that incorporated

statistics and a first-hand account of someone with impulsive shopping habits. Another issue that

I tackled during the revision process was the problem of deadwood explained in the reading by

Joe Glaser, "Two Widespread Problems: Overwriting and Underwriting". He explains that

deadwood is about needless words that weigh down writing. Going through my first draft I

realized I included a lot of unnecessary words, phrases, and even ideas that muffle the points I

was trying to make. In New York Times articles, the information must be presented in a clear and

concise format because readers are only going to quickly glance at the article. In my second

draft, I did the same thing and removed unnecessary words that made my writing sound more

confusing. These edits along with fixing grammatical errors and word junctions gave me the

skills to understand and translate complex academic information into different styles of writing

and also edit it effectively.

This writing course has not only taught me the skills to become a better writer but also changed

my mindset and perspective on how I understand writing as a whole. Writing is a very tedious

process that involves multiple steps of drafting, revision, gathering sources, and much more. L.

Lennie Irvin explains in the reading, Changing Your Mindset About Revios, “Revision, it turns

out, is about discovery, and growth, and problem-solving” (Irvin, 2019). I often got overwhelmed

with the process of writing especially when working on large papers and essays and because of

that overwhelming feeling so, I often rushed through the process and tried to get it done as

quickly as possible. I often skipped steps and only wrote one draft, edited that single draft, and
submitted it. However, with each writing assignment and project I have completed in this class, I

realized that if I break down each step and work through each step slowly, the process becomes

less daunting. The small project builders between each writing project helped prepare me for the

writing projects. The project builders for the first writing project allowed me to begin thinking

about how I would structure my writing and what writing choices I would make. The project

builders for both writing projects provided me with the ability to understand what academic

writing looks like, how to interpret it, and then have the ability to present it in a different genre of

writing. Translating the information from the academic article into a newspaper article required

reading and writing skills that the project builders provided me with. In the second writing

project, one of the challenges I faced was translating the academic conversation between the

authors of the scholarly articles into a non-academic conversation style of writing between

teachers. I initially presented the arguments of each teacher in a formal tone and realized normal

conversations are not very formal. This is what Kerry Brik explains in, Navigating Genres when

he states, “Knowing what a genre is used for can help people to accomplish goal” (Birk, 2010).

To successfully translate the arguments from each academic journal I must use the correct

conventions of a conversation which is what I revised in the second draft for writing project two.

Although I will not be able to do a long detailed writing process I have done each writing project

for every essay I will do in the future, it has provided me with critical skills of what to look out

for in my writing and how to improve my writing during the editing process which has greatly

contributed to my growth as a writer.

One of my biggest challenges as a writer, apart from grammar and wordiness, is the inability to

make connections between what I am writing and the larger overarching message. In my first
draft for writing project one, one of the feedback I received was to make the connection between

the research findings in the academic article and an overarching message I am trying to convey

in the news article. This was something that I did not consider and I initially thought I should just

restate the findings and research how it was conducted, but this proved to be a failure because

you do not typically see it in a news article genre of writing. This is why I made several changes

when I revised it for the final portfolio. For the second writing portfolio, I made the same

mistake and the main issue that I was presenting was unclear. In the revision process for writing

project two, I made the issue of writer's block clear by having one of the teachers present a clear

definition of what it is, I included more statistics and percentages to show the urgency of the

problem and elaborated on the solutions to combat the issue.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot about reading academic articles and became a stronger writer

through this final portfolio. Knowing the structure and function of each element in academic

articles has improved my ability to read them drastically. Also, understanding how to be concise

in my writing and how each genre of writing works is a big takeaway from this course. Overall,

this course has taught me several useful skills that will improve my writing and I will forever be

grateful for it.

Sincerely,

Celeste Cortez Herrera

Works cited:

Glaser, Joe."Two Widespread Problems: Overwriting and Underwriting" Understanding style

practical ways to improve your writing, pp.42-110

Brik, Kerry. “Navigating Genres” Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing, pp. 249-262

Irvin, L. Lennie. “Changing Your Mindset About Revision” Writing Spaces: Reading on
Writing, pp. 318-333