Camille Rosales

ENG 123
Professor Fisher
Fall 2015
Reflection Journal
Week 2 Reflection Journal
1. The Smart Thinking feedback helped me improve my one citation greatly. My tutor
helped me from being too vague and also she helped me with my word choice. I cannot
wait to submit other assignments the Smart Thinking, because their feedback is positive
and helpful. My tutor did not just tell me what to do to make my paper better; she listed
examples of questions I should be asking myself to help my reader understand what I am
discussing. Below I will paste my Smart Thinking submission.
2. The article that helped me narrow down my topic was Is it Possible to Let More People
out of Our Prison, and Keep Crime Down? Martian Kaste gave great insight on the
effects of Proposition 47 on inmates and law enforcement in California. Law enforcement
and procurers do not believe Prop 47 is going to be effective because is putting reoccurring offenders back on the street without rehabilitation or program treatment. That
part of the article led me to researching more about Proposition 47 and why rehabilitation
or treatment programs are effective while still in prison and upon release. I will be
researching programs such as: Criminon. Amity Foundation, and Project 180.
3. What works best for me is to print some of the articles that I read and highlight or take
notes on the article itself. I also take handwritten notes because it helps me comprehend
what I am reading. I do not use any program or technologies to help take my notes
because I get easily distracted. I do use my phone to record lectures when I am in a class
room. Recording lectures assists me greatly because I miss
4. It was somewhat difficult to narrow down a topic, but after the readings for this week, it
made narrowing down a topic a piece of cake. My topic is going to be discussing how exconvicts get into a cycle of going back to prison because they are released without any
transitional rehabilitation or program. If convicts are released without proper help they
will continue on with a life of crime because it is the only way they know how to survive.
I was also thinking of combing rehabilitation or treatment programs after prison as well
in prisons, so I can discuss how such programs can be help prevent re-entry to prison
before they are released into the world.
5. I believe that this research project is actually affecting my faith in a positive way. It has
made me realize there is more to not only convicts or ex-convicts, but people. Everyone
is more than the decisions that they make. Colossians 1:20 spoke loudly to me because
the way I interpret this verse is someone getting a second chance. This ties in with my

topic of making sure offenders have the proper program or rehabilitation to transition into
out of prison. They need this option so they can live on a straight and narrow path to
avoid being incarcerated again.
6. For my multimodal project I was thinking about creating a website like the one that was
given as an example on our lecture. Also, I was thinking about making a video.
7. I actually have been noticing a lot of rhetoric on a day to day basis. I believe that I use
rhetoric every day I go to work. I work at U-Haul and I persuade customers to move in
the most cost effective way. We offer our customers to move one way, which is picking a
piece of equipment at one location and returning it to another, or we offer a round trip
move, which is picking up and returning a piece of equipment to the same location. For
example, a customer had a reservation for a one way move from Carlsbad, CA to
Encinitas, CA in a twenty-six foot truck. We are currently always booked on our one way
twenty-six foot one way fleet trucks because more people are moving out of California
than moving in with that equipment. Since those cities are so close to each other, I
offered our round trip option which so happened to be a lot cheaper than going one way.
The real reason I persuaded this customer to make a roundtrip move was not only
because it was the cheaper option, but because I did not have a one way twenty-six foot
truck available for that particular move.

Smarthinking's Tutor Response Form

(Your marked-up essay is below this form.)
HOW THIS WORKS: Your tutor has written overview comments about your essay in the form
below. Your tutor has also embedded comments [in bold and in brackets] throughout your
essay. Thank you for choosing Smarthinking's OWL; best wishes with revising your paper!
Hi, Camille! My name is Jennifer Z., and I just finished reading your annotated bibliography. As
requested, I focused this reading on grammar and documentation issues only. Lets get started!
Strengths of the essay:
Your use of commas is good throughout, Camille. Specifically, you remember to use commas after
introductory clauses, as in the sentence Based off the interview with an Amity Foundation

employee, offenders will continue to go back to prison if they do not have the
proper services to keep them from the crime of life they know. This helps to separate
the introduction from the main part of the sentence. Good work!
Word Choice:
Avoid making up your own terms if there is a better, more formal term you could use. This can be
confusing to the reader and makes your writing sound less official. For example, in your paper, you
write,

It is not as simple as incarcerating crime doers to eliminate crime off the

street.

Crime-doers is not really a word or a term that can be used formally. What other terms could you
use? Criminals? People who commit crime? Can you think of another term that would work better?
Good luck!
Grammar & Mechanics:
Another thing you should watch out for, Camillie, is that it is not always clear in your writing what the
word this refers to. Using this without adequately explaining it can be confusing to your reader.
For example, look at the following passage:

Kastes main point in this article is not that ex-convicts are getting released
out of prison, but that they are entering the world without the proper help
they need. This would be an excellent contribution to eliminating mass
incarceration because it would force the ex-offenders to enter rehabilitation
centers to guide them onto the right path.

This should always have ONE clear referent from the sentence immediately before its use. Here,
though, it is not clear what this stands for. Does it stand for entering the world without the proper
help? Or for ex-convicts getting released out of prison? Or for something else? Can you reword to
clarify? Can you find any other examples in your writing where this is used unclearly?
Documentation:
Finally, Camille, your writing would be improved if you could clarify your references to specific parts of
the article. This helps interested readers who may want to look up your quotes and citations. For
example, in your bibliography, you write:

Based off the interview with an Amity Foundation employee, offenders will
continue to go back to prison if they do not have the proper services to keep
them from the crime of life they know.

Who is the Amity Foundation employee? What is Amity Foundation, and why should we care what
they think about this topic? Finally, where did you find this information in the article? Since this is a
reference to a specific point in the article (rather than the overall theme), it would help to cite using a
page number. In MLA style, an in-text citation is simply composed of the authors last name and the
page number on which the quotation/item of interest was found. For example, (Johnson 56).
This additional information will help interested readers who may want to follow up on your
information. For more information on the MLA Style, see the Smarthinking Writers Handbook. Good
luck!
Summary of Next Steps:
Youve got a great start, Camille. As you continue, please remember:
1.
2.
3.

Dont make up your own words

Make sure the referent for this is always clear
Be more specific in your citations

Good luck with your revisions. I enjoyed reading a little more about Prop 47 and its effects. Jennifer
Z.
You can find more information about writing, grammar, and usage in Smarthinking's
student handbooks. You can visit the Smarthinking Writer's Handbook or the Smarthinking
ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) Writer's Handbook.

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Camille Rosales
ENG 123
Professor Fisher
Fall 2015
Annotated Bibliography
Annotate Bibliography
Kaste, Martian. Is It Possible To Let More People Out of Prison, And Keep Crime
Down? NPR.
NPR, 16 July 2015. Web. 9 September 2015.
Kastes article discusses how Proposition 47 has impacted the state of
California. [Good, clear introductory sentence letting us know what the
article was about. However, this would be even clearer if you could define
what Prop 47 was. Why/how did this proposition force people out of
prison.] This proposition has forced many inmates out of prison and back into
society. Since Prop 47 has been in effect, there has increase in burglary and theft,
because that is the life reoccurring offenders know best. Many do not think this
reform is helping at all because it is putting ex-offenders out onto the street without
any proper help and care. [It often helps to clarify who has this opinion.
Many of who? Many offenders? Many politicians? Many members of the
public at large?] It is not as simple as incarcerating crime doers to eliminate crime

off the street. This then affects the number of offenders in prisons leading to mass
incarceration.
Kastes main point in this article is not that ex-convicts are getting released
out of prison, but that they are entering the world without the proper help they
need. This would be an excellent contribution to eliminating mass incarceration
because it would force the ex-offenders to enter rehabilitation centers to guide
them onto the right path. Based off the interview with an Amity Foundation
employee, offenders will continue to go back to prison if they do not have the
proper services to keep them from the crime of life they know. The only way the
state of California will know if this is a possible solution would be to try it. [In this
sentence, it is not clear what this is referring to. Interviewing Amity
Foundation employees? Going back to prison? Giving prisoners the
proper services? Ho might you reword to clarify?]