Reflective- Marvel

Core Value 1. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

During the semester long pursuit to improve upon my own writing skills I regularly looked to my peers writing for inspiration. Professor Hodges gives effective and unique feedback. There were times I was stuck on a particular assignment and I looked to feedback Mr. Hodges had left on other students. Many time I found an approach that I had not thought of and that got me moving in the right direction. Participating in daily class activities also allowed me to exercise the social and interactive practices that are so crucial to growing as a writer.  During one particular class, Mr. Hodges used my example from the Visual Rhetoric assignment as an in class exercise on what was expected from that assignment. This was instrumental in my understanding of the two fold purpose to this assignment. I had addressed the visual aspect, at least to some degree, but I failed to acknowledge what the images were saying.

Core Value 2. My work demonstrates that I read critically, and that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

Understanding language is hard. There is a level of interpretation that happens when we read that can sometimes mold ideas to how we want to see them. No one escapes bias. However, I do believe we can try to achieve a level of objectiveness to which we can begin to synthesis information more effectively. This course has awakened in me the critical analyzer and it goes beyond just work for this course. I heard an ad on the radio the other day on NPR, it said, “there are over a million bubbles in a glass of champagne.” Normally, I would have just accepted this as fact, however, I thought to myself, what If the champagne had been sitting out for a while and was flat. I don’t believe that there would be over a million bubbles in that glass. I attribute this to a semester of reading and analyzing many different kinds of writing. This analysis was ever present when writing my own arguments as well. Admittedly, this made it hard to feel as if what I was writing was adequate. The best example from my work this semester that demonstrates this core value is my Research paper.

Core Value 3. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

The best example that I have met this core value is through my Visual Rhetoric Assignment. This assignment forced me to analyze the content of a short advertisement in which I attempted to get inside the mind of the director. This process meant figuring out what the director was trying to say through visual choices. I attempted to answer questions like: Why did the director choose a certain sequence, color scheme, order or chronology? what audience was the ad directed to? What emotions did the director want to illicit? It was a wonderful exercise in rhetorical analysis.

Core Value 4: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

Locating appropriate information for the purpose of an academic paper was the easy task. I made sure to us sources from only academic sources. These sources include academic journals, books, online newspapers with expert testimony and more. Evaluating and incorporating these sources was more difficult. My topic, being based in science and medicine required background vocabulary that I often did not have. This required me to research individual terms, lengthening the process of evaluating the sources. Once evaluated, I was able to insert appropriate quotes to emphasize my arguments or provide counter arguments.

Core Value 5. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

The best example for me that I have demonstrated this value is through my Research Paper. During this process I read and evaluated over 20 sources. Many of these sources I quoted directly. I used the informal APA citation to direct my readers to the root source of this citation. Some sources were used to gain general knowledge of content needed to make clear arguments. These sources are also cited, although I did not directly quote them. I do this to demonstrate integrity in the research I have done.