Emily Torres

Professor Collin Hull

ENGL 2010-033

Reflection Essay
At Salt Lake Community College, the English department has a couple
of course goals that the professors would like their students to have reached
by the end of the course. Some of the goals read, adapt strategies of
argumentation for a given writing situation, write in multiple genres, cite
sources appropriately for the writing situation, including using an academic
system of citation with a high degree of proficiency, to name a few. I believe
that I have achieved all of the goals but I chose to include these three
specifically.
As noted earlier, one of the goals was to be able to write in different
genres. I definitely believe that I achieved this goal by doing all the required
essays. In English 2010, we were required to write many different papers
that were all different genres. Some of these include writing a synthesis, an
argumentative essay, an evaluation, a memoir, and even a letter to a public
official. Throughout the course, I wrote all of those essay except for the
memoir. The genre didnt fit my topic that I chose, but I thought it was cool
that we had the option to write an essay in that genre.
Two of the other goals that were given were, being able to argue in
different ways, and cite sources. When we had to write the synthesis about
our topic, we were told that we couldnt argue about our topic in that essay.

It was hard, but later got the chance to argue our side in the
position/proposal paper. The essay that was hard to not argue in was the
letter to a public official. It was important to make sure to argue in a
professional tone and not seem harsh about it. The last goal was being able
to cite a source appropriately. In English 1010, we were taught how to cite a
source but only in APA format. In English 2010, we were taught how to cite in
MLA format for not only our works cited page, but also throughout the essay.
It was taught that the author of the essay or book needed to be credited in
the essay itself.
Peer reviewing in an English class was not new to me but the way that
it was done in this class was new to me. In my previous English class, peer
review was done anonymously. In English 2010, we had a day in class to peer
review and had the chance to talk to the person that peer reviewed our
paper. I thought that was very helpful. It then allowed me to talk to the
person face-to-face to then clarify what they thought about my paper.
The comments that my peers made about my papers helped me
improve my essays. One of those comments would be them telling me that
my thesis or introduction paragraph paper was unclear. When I peer
reviewed an essay, I made sure to write down if something was unclear to
me and made a suggestion of how to fix it. I also would let them know if they
needed to fix their MLA formatting.
Doing peer review helped me see the kind of work that my peers were
putting out. It helped me see if my work matched up to it. I wanted to make

sure my work was college worthy. If they did something in their paper that I
liked, I made sure to keep that in mind and include that in my essay. An
example of that would be, if I liked how someone organized their paper with
their points, I took that and rearranged my paper because most of the time
my papers were all over the place. Peer reviewing other peoples work
helped me improve on my organization.
The process of putting my ePortfolio together was mostly revising my
three biggest essays. After having conferences with my professor about how
to improve my essays, I went ahead and began to revise them. With my
synthesis essay, I had to find a new source because the one that I used in my
paper was lacking. I ended up changing my opposing view to PETA and went
through and put in all of the new information. I believe this change made my
paper stronger.
For my position/proposal paper I needed to completely change my
paper. This was my essay that I struggled with the organization. I went
through and reorganized my points. I think doing this really transformed my
paper. In order to make my essay better, I went through and added more of
my own voice where it was need. Most of my changes I made in the position
part. For my proposal, I kept it as it was because I believed it was strong as it
was. The only change I made to that was I added a conclusion that was
forgotten earlier.
In order to make my rhetorical situation portfolio paper stronger, I
revised all three essays. For the evaluation, I took the critiques of my peer

reviewer and professor and changed my paper. In my evaluation I was

missing a clear thesis, so I went in and included it where I saw fit. I also went
through all three of my papers and rearranged some of my sentences so that
it would sound better.
Overall, the assignments that we did in English 2010 helped me
improve my writing skills. I now know how to research and use scholarly peer
reviewed journals, and how to integrate that into my essay. I also now
realized the importance of peer review and how that can impact my work
from reading someone elses paper. Lastly, I was able to take critiques about
my paper and not take them personally, in order to make my essays stand
out.