Reflection on Project 1

Reflection on Project 1

Project one, researching a controversy and writing a QRG, was a new type of writing assignment. I had never before been faced with a writing assignment other than the classic high school essay. Below is my reflection on the assignment. 

Gray, Alicia. "A good student supposedly"2/25/14 via flickr. Creative Commons Attribution.

• During the Quick Reference Guide project the main challenge I faced was determining whether or not I had enough information in my QRG. The QRG finds a perfect balance between being informative and not too over the top but I struggled to find this spot with my writing. Although I think I eventually was able to determine what the right amount of information was, it was a pretty long and tiring process. 
• During this project I experienced success in learning a number of new writing techniques which I had previously not known anything about. I found success in learning how to write the QRG and I also was able to learn how to better write an annotated bibliography. I think this will be very helpful in the upcoming college years. I also learned how to research more efficiently which I think is a tremendous success. 
• I think the most effective practices were taking a source, reading it, analyzing it and then determining how to make it fit into what I was writing about. This made me really understand my controversy topic while also helping me learn how to better integrate outside knowledge and outside sources. Additionally, I think the reading to remind myself about different grammar strategies including varied sentence structure, reducing repetition and incorporating ideas amongst quotes was a great way to develop my writing. 
• What I didn't find helpful during this project was what I had learned in high school which was to input a quote into the writing and then from there go on to explain that quote. I think the QRG style of writing that we were doing was great because it showed a completely different light of writing but unfortunately much of my prior knowledge of display and then explain was not very useful. 
• This writing process was similar to ones I have done in the past because it used different sources to help develop the ideas that I had. Additionally we went through the drafting process, which I am familiar with from having done before. 
• This writing process was different than past experiences that I have had because this was not a writing in which you analyzed one writing excerpt from a paper or book and tried to explain the "rhetorical strategy" or "character development". This project gave the writer more freedom and opportunity to really learn about the subject he or she was writing about and I think by dong that it opened up doors to different aspects of the writing style that we can now continue to use. 
• I think a number of the skills from this project would be useful in future coursework. Learning how to write a solid annotated bibliography is very important and I think I will use the knowledge for that in the future when I am writing papers for other classes. Additionally I think that I will use the ability to look up different types of sources to my advantage for future research. 

Evaluation:

• After reading Mathias and Jovanka's blogs I was able to gain insight on what my peers thought was helpful. Both Mathias and I had very narrow topics for our controversies so we each struggled a bit on finding enough in depth sources to help aid our QRG. I wish that I could have taken more away from the "Clarity" exercises though like he did because I feel like I didn't let them help me enough. Jovanka and I had similar ideas on how using emotional appeal can help show readers that the topic at hand relates to them but while she didn't use any social media sources I used them as somewhat of a focal point in my writing. While we all have some similar ideas we vary in what we think is helpful and other stuff that we don't think is as helpful.