Reflection of My Writing Progress

The Course LART 211 gives me a new awareness of writing. There are so many techniques that could make a chaotic essay into a well-organized paper with a clear logic and convincing evidence. Writing is a way of communicating with the audience, not a note that we keep our thoughts for the memo. It is an art to lead your audience’s minds and get the feedback you expect, with the technique of logic, evidence, and paper structure. Also, teamwork is important in my writing learning. I can see many possible ways to discuss an issue from different reasonable perspectives when I am brainstorming with my teammates. Instead of receiving what the teacher teaches us, I have more opportunities to consider a problem in my way and combine suggestions of others. Writing is, to some extent, like debates. You have to make your logic very clear and lead the mind of your audience. You need to provide evidence so that your opponents could not question your points. What is more important, you need to think what your audience or opponent might react and solve the potential problems in your essay to make it more complete. Now, when I am asked to write an essay, I will make a draft first and brainstorm with my group members. I will share my points with them and listen to their responses. Meanwhile, I will keep down their points and consider which point is useful in my essay. Then I will make a brief outline, with the thesis, top sentences of each paragraph, and the conclusion confirmed. After that, I will look for related materials to find possible evidence that could support my argument. Also, if there is new concept or perspective that I fail to consider, I will also revise my outline and add these new points to complete my outline. After I collect enough supportive evidence, I will start to organize the paper with a clear logic and combine all the evidence in my outline. After the paper is finished, I will review my paper to check if there are any possible questions from the audience or if each point is convincing enough with proper citations. At last, I will read my paper to other persons for their responses. After revising the paper with their feedbacks, my final paper is done.

I used to write whatever comes to my mind and keep all my points like keeping a diary. Also, due to my limited knowledge range and lack of critical thinking, people were confused with my logic and argued if my points were convincing enough because there was no supportive evidence. Through the discussion with my teammates, I learned many ways to make a logical argument and make my argument critical and convincing. For example, when I was asked to write a short paper about the Electoral College in the US, I simply followed the author’s logic after reading related materials like “Studying Presidential Electors.” I agreed that this electoral system was quite unreasonable and filled with loopholes that failed to reflect the true intention of voters. However, when I was brainstorming with my group members, I was shocked that they listed many positive aspects of this electoral system and proved its reason of existence for 200 years. Then I realized that my original concept was quite inadequate. I need to discuss this problem not only from its existing loopholes but also from its reasonable effect in the current system, as well as if this electoral system was replaceable and how to improve it in the future. After combining all these points in my paper, I found my paper was more convincing and complete.

For the future improvement, I am looking forward to reading more articles to broaden my knowledge range and the critical mind. When I am brainstorming with others, I find that my points are still superficial and lack of a critical logic. Also, when I read my paper to others for suggestions, sometimes they offer some questions that I immediately stuck because I didn’t think the problem in that aspect. Thus, more readings and discussions are crucial in my future writing study to establish a critical mind and the ability to consider a problem in multiple ways.