Gideon 1 Kody Gideon Eng 102-117 Neuburger 14 May 2013 English 102-117 Final Reflection Paper More than

anything this semester has taught me the importance of cohesive, to the point writing. I write in a very lyrical and poetic manner; which is fine in those settings but this course has made me aware of the fact that I use focus so much on embellishment of what Im writing that I dont delve directly in to the topic and make my point. The assignments that had space limits proved to be the most difficult for me. Ive never had problems reaching a word minimum because I always seem to have plenty to say, but the assignments that gave me a limited amount of space to say what I needed to say forced me to cut a lot of my typical detail oriented writing. It proved hard for me but I believe it was the most important lesson I received, writing poetically is fine in those settings but I needed the lesson on to the point writing in an academic setting. If I had to choose a second lesson that I took away from the course it would be the importance of a well flowing paper, with a properly formatted layout. Ill be the first to admit that my knowledge of the MLA format is not up to par, before college I never had to deal with in-text citations, and never had criteria for bibliographies. I lost a good deal of points this semester due to lacking knowledge in this area, I need to brush up on the format over the summer and I plan to do so. I also had to transition from using open office on my laptop to using word on campus,

Gideon 2 this lead to a lot of last minute corrections, while open office is able to save documents in a format readable by word the formatting doesnt stay exact. My use of transition words was also previously quite limited; I had never given any thought to using variety in transitions from one topic or point to the next. Apart from my previously mentioned difficulties I encountered a few issues with the research paper. Initially I had no interested in the required topic but as I forced myself to do research I enjoyed learning about the holocaust. The biggest issue for me was staying unbiased in my writing, I found myself wanting to press my opinion into my research which I feel is something that one should not do in an academic research paper. Again formatting was a nightmare for me with this paper, it looked fine to me in open office but the differences in word cost me. The multimedia requirements of both the research paper and the movie maker project were incredibly helpful. I was glad to learn about methods, this was the first time I had ever been required to do so. If I could redo the research paper I would have been more organized in my collecting of sources, for the most part I just saved hyperlinks to websites that I utilized and put it all together at the end, I had all of my sources that I used but I didnt keep track of which source I got my information from properly. The use of technology in this class was another one of the highlights. Of the three online courses Ive had the computer has just been a method for the teacher to avoid actually teaching anything, when they can just post an article or say go find it online. I appreciate the instruction in different online tools that were provided. Before the class I had never used blogger, twitter, movie maker or diggo. Now that Im aware of their existence and uses I will continue to use diggo for all collegiate papers that I have to write as well as movie maker for taking a creative approach to

Gideon 3 scholarly and personal projects. One drawback of technology, at least for me is retainment of knowledge. I process and maintain information much better if I physically write something down; during the research paper I hand wrote each section before typing it and it made the process go much more smoothly. I feel the instruction in this course was overall excellent. My grades in it are by no means fantastic but they are what I deserve. The biggest thing I could have done to improve my experience would have been attend the class more. Due to other priorities and personal issues this semester I missed several class periods, in which Im sure I missed a lot of relevant instruction. I also think that maybe some online tutorials could have been helpful, there was a lot of information provided on the different utilities (movie maker, twitter, diggo , etc.) in class but application of the skills taught were used hours or days after class and werent as fresh as they were when taught. Just a few brief video tutorials on blackboard would make a great reference point. I wish there had been more course time for creative and persuasive writing. I know that academic writing is my weak point but I would have liked an opportunity to learn more and refine my skills in the writing styles that I am adept at. It seems that the class work load wasnt balanced. I know that a large part of that was due to the amount of school missed due to severe weather. But I wish there had been more time between the research paper and the movie maker project, each of them took more time than I expected which isnt a bad thing but it did feel a bit overwhelming doing them back to back. The movie maker project taught a lot of great skills and I think it would help future students if the project was shifted closer to the beginning of the course rather than immediately following the large research paper.

Gideon 4 Overall I feel the course was worth taking. Instruction was clear and concise and the shortcomings I experienced in the course were of my own fault. I feel like this is one of the few technology classes that are properly utilizing it to its fullest extent and I have learned more about writing weaknesses than I have in any other course that Ive taken thus far. I think that identifying weakness in writing and the importance of fixing those weaknesses was the most important lesson I will take away. Rather than being a course thats a money sink, with a lot of academic fluff the course provided me with some applicable skills that I will continue to use after my college career.