The English 110 course is focused on critical thinking skills and effective writing abilities. We analyzed a lot of different writings and their effectiveness during this course. We learned how to use claims and evidences in our own writings successfully. This one line from the Syllabus explains this course really well that "each student is expected to produce writing that reflects careful and cogent consideration of the topic and purpose of the essay, sufficient development, logical and effectual organization of the ideas, and control of English writing conventions, including, but not limited to, essay/paragraph structure, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics." After taking this course I can definitely say that I have become a better writer.
We did a rhetorical analysis activity for the "Fail Fast" reading. I did not do too well on this as I ended up confusing summarizing with analyzing. But I understood it better after leaning form my mistakes and improving upon them. In essay 2, page 2-3, paragraph 3, I responded to Wolpert's claim that our visual skills have improved because of the way we obtain information these days, I responded by saying, however, it is not worth sacrificing our critical thinking skills just to have better visual skills. This whole 2nd essay was an argument which was kind of a response to Carr's claim whether we agreed with him or not. While writing the 2nd essay, I learned to lay down a strong arguments in response to
I did not have much trouble with this part compared to others. I think I had learned it quite well in high school, which helped me in this course as well. Avoiding plagiarism is also one of the main focuses and I have done very in being successful at that. The EZ research tutorial taught me how to look up college level sources through the library's web page for free. Through that I was able to find appropriate sources to back up my writings. Paper 3 really helped me understand the details that went into quoting, paraphrasing and documenting sources. I learned how to use introduce and cite properly in MLA format. We talked about the different ways to introduce quotes in a writings, which have different impacts. In essay 3, page 2, paragraph 2-3, I introduces the quotes by saying , according to Suzanne Goldberg and the other by saying, in a report by Dana Gunders. I think I have improved a lot with my use of quotes in my writings comparing essay 1 and essay