Wrc 1023 Reflection

Writing has always been my greatest weakness throughout my academic career. I love to talk and debate with other students. I also know writing will be important in any future career. Therefore, being able to translate my thoughts into writing efficiently has been a goal of mine. Thanks to WRC 1023, I have made great progress towards that goal. Because WRC 1023 teaches persuasive writing, I have focused on writing a strong thesis and using credible sources in my essays. But, I still have to improve on grammar, another important aspect of writing.

A proper thesis is vital to an essay. The thesis of an essay summarizes the main point and states why the essay is important. I have worked hard to develop the best thesis for every essay. With

this determination, I never lost points on a paper for my thesis. However, I think my thesis in my second essay was my weakest. The thesis read, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, is a culturally and historically significant film (and is 10 years old) and should be considered for inclusion in the registry” (Essay 2 Borat). This thesis was structured properly, but failed to grab the attention of the reader. Stating that the film was significant culturally and historically, without any justification may have given the reader the belief that I was credible. Although I justified this claim throughout the essay, a poorly formed thesis may have influenced the reader to doubt the validity of the rest of my essay. The thesis of my first essay had flaws, but it did a better job of catching the reader’s attention:
I believe the New York Times article by Adam Nagourney and Julie Turkewitz is superior to the one from Newsweek by Max Kutner, because the arguments against open campus carry are more convincing, the information presented is backed by statistics, and the article gives a concise description of the involvement of the Republican and Democratic parties on the issue of gun control (Essay 1).
This thesis did an excellent job of making a claim, and then using ideas to support the claim. This informed the reader on what the essay was going to be about.The words “I believe…” at the beginning of the thesis should have been taken out, because it potentially made the reader think the rest of the essay was based on my opinion rather than facts. Overall, the theses of my essays were properly structured and effectively summarized the main point.
When writing a persuasive essay, there is one aspect of the essay that can transcend its content from being questionable to being highly believable: credible sources. My 3rd essay was about, “the relationships between poor neighborhoods in San Antonio with food deserts and corresponding rates of obesity” (Essay 3 food). Writing about this topic required me to use lots of statistics in order to prove my point. At first, the process of finding statistics from credibly sources proved to be challenging. I came across multiple websites that were full of bias agendas and gave information that lacked credible sources or any source at all. Through the use of the databases made available to me though UTSA, I was able to find some credible sources. One article I included from my paper was a peer review study conducted by a professor at Harvard University. Before mentioning the statistics from the study, I introduced the author by stating, “Harvard professor Dr. Rosenheck conducted a study in which he evaluated fast food consumption among families” (Essay 3 food). Mentioning that Dr. Rosenheck is a professor from Harvard, a highly respected university, reassured the reader that the information that I was going to present was trustworthy.. Consequently, the use of credible sources in my essays made the essays more believable and thus improved my writing.
Though WRC 1023 has helped me improve as a writer, I still struggle with grammar.

I received full points in every category of the grading rubric for my essays except for grammar. My 2nd essay had the worst grammar out of my four essays. I included misplaced commas throughout the essay. One example of this is in between “both” and “historically” in the sentence stating “These films must be at least 10 years old and are both, historically and culturally significant” (Cite essay 2 Borat). I then misplaced another comma in the following sentence. The incorrect comma is between “Kazakhstan” and “is” in the sentence “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, is a culturally and historically significant film…” (Cite essay 2 Borat). I made yet another mistake using commas in the following paragraph. I stated that “His experience in Texas is historically important, because it…” (Cite essay 2 Borat). The comma between “important” and “because” needed to be removed. These are just three examples out of the seven incidents of incorrect comma use in this essay. I have improved this weakness since essay 2. This is proven in my 4th and final essay. I was able to lower the frequency of incorrect comma use in this essay by focusing more on my grammar. I had only two comma mistakes in essay 4, rather than seven in essay 2. The first example of incorrect comma use in essay 4 occurred when I stated that “Miller’s scene where he had a panic attack was so convincing, that I began to feel anxious” (Essay 4). There should not be a comma after “convincing”. The 2nd example was when I wrote “He just seemed confused throughout most of the movie, and never appeared to have a clear purpose” (Essay 4). The misused comma is after “movie” and before “and”. From essay 2 to essay 4, I was able to minimize my grammar mistakes from seven misplaced commas to only two. This improved my writing and allowed my essays to be more

professional.
My hard work in WRC 1023 has elevated my writing, but I could not have improved without the instruction and feedback from Dr. Hudson. This course has increased my ability to write a thesis and incorporate credible sources into my essay, while improving my use of grammar. Though I have made progress in my writing abilities, I must continue to push myself in order to become an even better writer. Using what I have learned on thesis writing and on the importance of using credible sources, while continuing to improve my grammar, will help lead me to my goal of becoming a more efficient and effective writer.