Jared M.

Aulisi

March 2nd, 2017

UWRT 1102

Metacognition

What is one assignment or activity that has helped you the most? (If none, please explain
your reactions to at least one assignment.)

One assignment, that I think really benefited me in this course specifically was the Annotated
Bibliography assignment. Throughout high school, I struggled a lot with citations and in-text
sources and I never fully grasped the whole concept of it. I would often just put my links as
sources and they would take that for credit, but I never formally knew how to exactly do them in
MLA format. The Annotated Bibliography really helped me see exactly how to do a citation, how
to put in in-text citations correctly and format it where it corresponded with the correct format
that I was using. Without this assignment, I would still be completely lost on how to credit my
sources correctly so that it isnt plagiarism and hurts my overall grade.

You participated in one informal peer review so far. What was the experience like, and
can you apply anything you learned to future writing and/or classes?

I think again, this was my first realistic peer review I have ever done. In highschool, it was very
simplistic and it wasnt taken as seriously, nor was it beneficial to me in anyway, shape or form.
In this course, I believe this is the first time a peer review session has actually benefited me on
an assignment and encouraged me to fix the mistakes I had so that I could receive a better
grade. Most of my peers were incredibly helpful in showing me which mistakes I had, and how
to fix them properly, so I am very thankful for that.

Explain one way you might change your reading or writing practices as you continue.

I still struggle a lot when it comes to proper writing. Its not exactly the structure or format of
writing a proper essay, its more to do with grammar, word choice and sentence structure. I want
to learn how to break down sentences so they arent run-on sentences. I need help with learning
how to expand my word choice, because I often use the same vocabulary over and over again
when I cant think of another word to use. I have issues with grammar and placement of where
punctuation like commas should or shouldnt go. All of these issues, I hope to further benefit
myself as I continue on with this course to really evolve as a writer and improve my skills.
Explain one way you have contributed to the class.

I would say that I have really contributed a huge effort into this class, probably the most out of
all my classes. This class requires a load of work, in which I take the most time to really layout
how I do certain assignments to make sure they are done in the correct manner. I always
contribute my most thought out and dedicated work into this course. With the topic of the
question I am researching, I believe I am doing a topic that is not often thought out or done
before. So hopefully I will be abstracting out something new to think about and explain it in a
way that captivates your best interest.

What is something from your research that surprised you?

I dont think I really grasped every single portion of my topic, I knew some brief history on it but
not to the extent of when I searched it. Something that really stood out to me though, was the
difference in diversity of artists from one time period to another. Not only is this surprising on a
musical scale, but a national scale as a country. Music used to be so dominative by one race,
and the fact that other races have put their foot in and took that control to dominate evenly
among themselves is extraordinary. This was based off of several articles, which I linked as
sources in which statistically broke down and showed the diversity in music throughout the
different time periods. Being an advocate for equality and human rights, this really excited me to
see how far weve come as a nation in America. How we let different musical backgrounds
influence our music and ultimately bring people together.

List ten questions or concerns you still have about writing.

1. How to correctly punctuate sentences.

2. Expanding my vocabulary and learning not to use the same words and expressions.
3. Easier ways to find peer reviewed sources, if needed for an assignment.
4. Learning how to use different formats aside from MLA.
5. How to make different indents, especially with citations.
6. How often do you need to cite things in a paper, specifically in-text citations?
7. How do you correctly cite an in-text citation and check to make sure its accurate?
8. How do you successful analyze a paper without including any summary?
9. How is analyzing a paper more beneficial than summarizing it?
10. How to tell whether or not a source is validated?
Create one goal related to class for the second half of your semester.

One goal I want to set for myself is how to correctly separate summary from analysis. I had an
incredibly hard time with the assignment we did regarding that, and I am unsure if I did it
correctly in my Annotated Bibliography. It really is incredibly difficult to separate summary from
analysis, so I want to break down how to exactly divide it, so that I can succeed in this area. Its
hard to make assumptions without any backup aswell, which is part of the analyzing process, so
I want to learn how to successfully back up my analysis. It is incredibly difficult to not add
summary when analyzing, and often you can miss any summary that you have accidently
included, so I want to fully grasp this idea so that in the future, I can successfully analyze a
paper.