Reflection 6
How has your understanding of writing and/or of writing as a process changed or evolved in
this class? What writing skills did you practice and what concepts did you find the most
insightful or helpful as a writer? In what ways, if any, has your writing technique or process
changed?
Before taking this writing course, I always think that sentences in academic writing are the more
complex, the better. Although I will think about the structure of separate paragraphs when
writing a paper before, I do not pay enough attention on the transition between each sentences
and different paragraphs. In this writing class, I have learned many transition words and phrases.
While I know how to explain evidence to support my arguments, I have never thought about
specific purpose of each quotes or evidence I cited. After taking WR112, I have learned many
sentence structure to emphasize my ideas and signal the audience the reason that I include the
quotes.
What assignments represent your best work this semester? Why? If you were not satisfied
with your work on one of the assignments, why? If you could do this assignment again, what
would you do differently?
In my opinion, the academic paper that I wrote is my best work for this semester. In the academic
paper, I have used the techniques learned in this writing class to structure my central idea and
develop my ideas through several paragraphs. I also tried to construct a rebuttal which is
something that I have never attempted in an academic writing before. The project that I am least
satisfied with might be the inforgraphics as I think our group final project still lacks some essential
information and the our selection of data could have been more relevant to our central topic. If I
can make the infographics again, I probably will not choose to use the format provided by Canvas
again. Instead, I may tried to create my own layout so that I can present information in a more
comprehensive way.
In what ways has this course has informed your understanding of oral and/or multimodal
communication? What is some insight or skill you gained from our discussions and projects?
What have you learned about your own communication style through these activities?
In oral and multimodal communication, the central idea is to deliver the message to the audience
in the most effective way. Hence, information should be provided in the most direct and
straightforward way. Sometimes facial expressions and gestures is vital for better conveying our
message in an oral communication. The infographics project let me realize the importance of
visual representation of information in multimodal communication. While written texts is
essential for audience to understand the content, pictures and charts can help capture their
attention and ensures they do not miss important information. When preparing for the group
presentation on infographics, I learned that we should also mind our speaking speed and
intonation, making sure to correctly emphasize on the central information but not the
unimportant content.
What did you learn about globalization, language, and identity? How has our course
informed or shaped your thinking about these key concepts?
This writing class provides many reading materials and videos about the pros and cons of
globalization. After learning those material, I noticed that every author holds a different view on
the issue of globalization. It seems to me that it’s hard to define globalization as being fully good
or bad to the contemporary society. While globalization makes popular languages more
dominant, it leads to loss of languages in monoculture. Moreover, language also hinders
globalization in some way as translation between different languages creates loss in the meaning
of words and phrases. In addition, after reading the personal anecdotes assigned in the writing
class, I come to realize that while globalization fosters global economy in general and prompt
immigration, it also casue many immigrants to suffer from their loss of identity.