Final Reflection

Cover Letter

I have been reading books all my life. When you spend enough time with your nose in a book you learn a lot about what others think. People write books for real reasons other than just to entertain - hidden in the plot are people. Their beliefs and ideas are never accidentally placed there; they are planted and then cultivated by the reader. I have been reading all my life, but I have never been good writing. People think that writing and reading are interchangeable. The relationship between the reader and the writer cannot be as simplistic as to be called identical. The relationship is symbiotic; the writer useless unless there is a reader to read the work. But to really understand good literature you need to write it for yourself. I have never been a good writer but I have also never been good at giving up.

When I took my first real college level writing class in junior year, I failed the first essay and the one after that. I continued to fail the essays one after the other with my classmates, depending on participation points to save my grade. “Revision” is no stranger to me; I revised everything and was taught a different lesson each time. I’m resilient that way, always joking that it will be perfect next time, not taking red marks too hard. This class was no different than the one junior year or even the one senior year, I revised your papers just the same. I didn’t expect this class to be easy, I’ve never written a research paper before and I’ve never had talent for winging things. So I signed up anyway hearing that you were a lenient teacher and willing to help your students.

Format was always my problem. My writing style was always conversational (yet maybe still is). In the Annotated Bibliography I was confused, using it as a glorified note sheet. My sources were not located on the bottom - instead they hung above the paragraphs haphazardly highlighted. No indention was mad to properly cite them. No introduction was  written and it wasn’t headed in MLA format. Despite the many problems with my first Annotated Bibliography, it still acquired points. I am torn with whether or not to tell you the truth; that the Annotated Bibliography wasn’t done the night before because I feel that might almost make it worse. But in all seriousness the grade was justified and thus I revised.

I changed the list-like formatting for one that was written out with paragraphs and sentences. The new format was MLA using the proper double spacing, heading and cited my sources respectably. I added an introduction and composed my paper based off of gender, religion, culture, and ethics (leaving my citations at the bottom of the paper and without highlight). In the first Annotated Bibliography assignment I never talked about the information directly, instead focusing on how the information affected me. This was fixing but omitting myself from the equation and speaking only about the research. This change I believe had the biggest effect to the legitimacy of the final draft of the Annotated Bibliography. After the revision the original work seems so elementary and embarrassing.

The Literature Review, even though it didn’t succeed at first, has been heavily revised. The original was far from decent. The first literature review consisted of three pages while the final one ended with six. The font was 16 in the first one and I regrettably admit was written the night before. The first one failed everywhere the second succeeded; I learned a little trick with this paper to make it reasonable to complete. For the Literature Review I made an outline of the paper and its many sections then filled it in with the information. In the second review I gave the information, connected the information then expounded with others data. It’s undoubtedly one of the best papers I have ever written.  The first is of course the final paper.

Addressing my actual research, I added my research plan I created to help wrap my mind around the information I was receiving. The research plan along with the Intertextual map was essential to the creation of the final paper. The research plan wasn’t a real assignment yet I spent days making it and creating it. I gave it a place in my final portfolio because I believe it accurately depicts my writing process, my understanding of the audience and my research process. The information may seem chaotic but that was the easiest way to see the information, with arrows and visuals. The research plan was never intended for my audience, but considering the fact as I was writing my paper it was pulled up side by side, please understand its importance.  

The true difference between the works I wrote prior to taking this class and the papers I wrote in the very beginnings of this class is I cared about what I was writing about. It sounds harsh, but my English classes before were all about writing about what others said and thought. It was rewriting what was already said. I constantly felt that we were just beating a dead horse, page after page of telling my teacher something he or she already knows. I loved the reading but English class always ruined the books with their mindless topics. Even though we didn’t read novels and I dreaded reading the student papers, towards the end of this semester I realized that  this class was requiring me to tell you something new, something never explored and uncharted. I don’t believe that enjoying the learning process was actually an outcome given to us, but in the spirit of format issues I’ll create a format six. I really enjoyed crating this

 portfolio and this research paper; I don’t know if you read the cover letters first or last, but I wish to thank you for the opportunity to create something. It may be about food choice and meal plans, but thank you for the opportunity to engage in meaningful rhetorical situation and the research process and to revise everything so I can still pass this course.