10 May 2018

E. LeRoy Richards

Development as a Writer Reflection.

While working with my group to research and compile the Discourse Community Map

(DCM) to the proper format, I feel we excelled in producing a well-constructed assignment and

presentation. While working on this assignment I practiced my research and writing review

abilities. I am not the sharpest knife in the draw but I learned skills like making power point

presentation to produce briefing or training classes while I was in the US Army. So, it helps me

shake the rust off of those skills and processes that I had not used in a few years. I do not believe

nor feel that this assignment obstructed my writing process. It improved it by challenging me

and the group to read information of our community subject and using DCM processes to

describe how our subject met the criteria of being a DCM and allowing us to produce the

Activity Systems Analysis (ASA) to show just how the Communities processes interact and

support all the areas involved in the ASA.

My group to compile a comprehensive Website Rhetorical Analysis (RA) project to the

proper format and give objective feedback. To understand what a RA is and what Ethos, Logos,

and Pathos (ELP) are really assisted to produce the RA process, made it a very interesting, and a

challenging assignment by how to identify them and their uses in the website(s). I am using the

components of the RA to improve my own E-portfolio site. It did not obstruct my writing

process. Once again, I improved it by challenging me to read and comprehend the information

being portrayed on the website.

Complying a summary of the sources to complete the Annotated Bibliography (AB)

paper was very interesting and I feel it gave me a chance to work on a format process that I never
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E. LeRoy Richards

used before, providing specific information about each source that will be used for the

Communitive Project Report. Becoming a researcher and working to become an expert on my

topic. Gave me the ability to explain the content of the sources, assess their usefulness, and

share this information with others who may be less familiar with them. As the previous

assignments I have worked on during the past ten weeks has allowed me to improve and practice

my reading, analysis, research, writing, and review skills. I will continue to improve and grow in

my abilities of writing and use of grammar. Using an AB can be excellent preparation for future

research projects during my college degree. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful

and required. But when I have to write a summary for each source, it required me read each

source more carefully.

This assignment was different and difficult from the others that I have worked on. I

believe I accomplished the purpose of the assignment and wrote an in-depth summarization of

my thesis. Compiling different products or parts of the assignment to complete the Community

Problem Report (CPR) paper was interesting. I found it more difficult to work with each specific

document I created in support of the CPR. Producing the proposal memo, annotated

bibliography, and presentation was not difficult task individually but using them as a form of

outline to complete the end product is where I lost my chain of thought. I enjoyed the challenge

of the paper since it was new. Gave me the ability to explain how the content of my sources

supported my thesis and see other counter argument. Throughout my college experience I feel I

will have to use lessons learned during this assignment to prepare other research project.

Starting with choosing a research topic question and secondary questions to support it, by using

the characteristics of a good research question. Albeit I did not use all my initial secondary
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E. LeRoy Richards

questions to write my final report, learning that they are to be of Fact, Interpretation,

Consequences, Value, and Policy questions made me think before I wrote. I feel my writing

style allowed me to meet the criteria of the assignments. Gathering my sources for the

proposal, bibliography, and initial presentation steps of the CPR individually was completed with

ease. It was when I started to incorporate them together for my paper is when I became “brain-

cramped” with organizing my ideas into an intelligible paper.

I was able to produce and transfer my CPR paper into the Visual Argument Brochure

(VAB) with ease. I was able to convey the importance of family very ease with images and the

consequences of not completing and maintaining an FCP with the statistics from one of my

sources for the paper argument. Trying to convey the counter argument was the difficult part of

my VAB. My CPR paper explained the history and reasoning for how the FCP became into

existence by giving an overview of its inception to what documentation governed the procedures

of the program with simple instructions. Transforming that into the VAB allowed me another

document to expand into a more detailed argument of Who was required and What paperwork

therefore my argument changed into a solution process.

I look forward to using my RWS 1301 assignments that have greatly improved my

writing skills, knowledge of rhetorical appeals, and experiences in the Fall 2018 semester for the

RWS 1302.