Joeli Valerio
Professor Ewan
FIQWS
6 May 2019
Reflection on Argumentative Essay on Representation Minorities in the TV and Film
Throughout my life i’ve always notice the bad representation given to minorities making me feel less. Finding out this was one of the choices for the argumentative essay filled me up with excitement since this is a topic i’ve always wanted to express my beliefs on. In the argumentative essay I discussed the importance of representation of women and the need of representation for the young Latino children. When doing this argumentative essay I thought it would’ve been easy since it hits home but it was challenging expressing my beliefs. I couldn’t be bias in this essay since although its an argumentative essay the topic had a counter argument I had to express. This argumentative essay has allowed me to grow an understanding on how to the my explain subclaims and become a more neutral writer.
In the argumentative essay I made sure I took time in two things I struggled with when writing these essays. How I prioritize my essay was I decided before beginning the essay was to find sources that give both negative and positive parts of the topic I am writing about. Additionally I was finding sources allowing me to figure out what my body paragraphs will be discussing. When I was writing this essay I prioritized how I was going to sound neutral and how I was going to explain the pieces of evidence I introduced. In this argumentative essay I picked a difficult for me to be neutral. I eventually succeeded to sound neutral due to the sources which gave me counter arguments. My logic behind my prioritization was to focus on parts that I find a challenging but not to be urgent. I focused on the important parts but wasn’t urgent since I wanted this essay to make sense and not rush. In this is an argumentative essay you have to try to convince people. If you rush your essay you will lose that strong claim you present which in the end becomes a trail of random words. A argumentative essay and an expository essay are very different. The first difference that can be noticed of these two styles is that the expository essay is more informational using only facts while the argumentative will use pieces of evidence to back up the writers claim. To add on in an expository you use neutral and objective voice. However in a argumentative you mostly use subjective voice. An argumentative essay is written in first person since the narrator expresses what they believe about the topic. An expository is written formally in third person which can explain when informing the topic it is neutral. The knowledge of the expository essay allowed me know how to use neutral voice especially in the counter argument.
Moreover in this argumentative essay I used both past and new approaches. The past approaches I used is how a argumentative essay is structured. Additionally another past approach I used was signal phrases. I used signal phrases to introduce the pieces of evidence to back up my claim. A new approach that I used for my argumentative essay was fallacies. The key was to not sound fallacious. With fallacies the essay doesn’t sound truthfully. The old approaches allowed me to move forward in the essay. The signal phrases helped me analyze the pieces of evidence. However the new approaches helped me grow my knowledge on these type of essays. I didn’t know about the term fallacy and figuring it out that it shouldn’t be in the essay made my essay sound much more proper and made me slow down on this essay to see if I added any fallacy. How I adapted my thesis was I had to be reword and shorten it to become more direct. In my final thesis I used a plausible term and became more direct making it clear where I stand in the topic.
To add on, From when I wrote my first essay for FIQWS I believe my understanding of MLA format grew. When we first began I usually had to go to the handouts to help me write in MLA format but know I have it drilled in my brain. The MLA formatting has allowed me to become a critical thinker. It has allowed me to analyze pieces of evidence helping me become better at paraphrasing which I never clearly understood before. The in text citation has made it more comfortable for readers can read. This explains how the MLA format has allowed me to cite in a structured way making my essay become more proper stopping anything plagiaristic.
We were as well introduced to quote integration which I thought was super difficult. Quote integration is when you put a quote inside one of your own sentences allowing the sentence to sound complete. I didn’t really understand the concept until I was practicing with it. During the process I saw what errors I had to to fix. Many quotes might had extra words I left that could’ve been cut off. You need to make sure when you input the quote no words make it sound confusing. This was occurring to me but eventually I resolved the issue.
Full source identification was a struggle from me in from the beginning. In text citation became less challenging for me. When I was learning about it I immediately got it. I felt proud immediately understand it because it allowed me to improve the way I analyzed pieces of evidence. Therefore in text citation have allowed me to explain in my own words what a piece of evidence means.
Synthesis has allowed me to connect the dots of my essays which I first I didn’t know how to do causing me to trial off in my essays. Understanding this skill has made my essay stronger. In my conclusions I never wrote evidence recap which could’ve explained why my essays weren’t as a high grades as I wanted. The evidence recap is important because it brings the reader back to the main ideas discussed throughout the body paragraphs.
The academic argument is when you identify a claim and have the points that are going to be discussed and a counterclaim. How the academic argument affected my essay is you had to be respectful and couldn’t be bias. In this case this topic discussed about a topic that hit home. The argumentative essay allowed the previous developed skills to shine making me feel confident on what I wrote in my essay.
Furthermore, when proofreading my essay I was making sure I didn’t have any fragments, conclusive sentences and fallacies. Those were the three aspects I checked were not in my essay. I looked over my subclaims if they connect to my claim by the help of proofreading. Proofreading helped me see what issues I had to fix and what I should not do in future assignments.
My peer explained many things in the review that were helpful. She noticed conclusive phrases I had to fix. She also explained how there wasn’t many signal phrases and a quote didn’t fit it. The issues my partner noticed helped me make many positive changes in my essays. This shows that we don’t see our error. But with the help of a peer your eyes open and you see what you’ve done wrong.
However although I got help from my peer I did seek help from a tutor. The help from the tutor was very good since she helped me see what I should reword. She recommended to change certain things such as the title and a sentences that need clarification. With the help of the tutor and my peer I saw many errors I didn’t notice when I was proofreading. I adapted from the tutor that the title shouldn’t be excessively long like my original title was.
When I was proofreading I was reading out loud which helps me clarify any words or phrase that should be removed. I looked at my signal phrases, fragments and made sure my claim makes sense, spelling and lastly that the explanation of the quotes have accurate meaning. I did this all individually because I didn’t want to jumble all to then have errors because if that occurred rushing would just bring more errors and my grade will lower. I check everything individually to make sure it was clear. Then when I’m finalizing I do the last read out loud to make sure it makes sense. Proofreading always helps me see what I normally need to work on to become a better writer.
In conclusion, this argumentative essay has allowed me to grow an understanding on how to explain my subclaims and become a more neutral writer. In this essay I saw what mostly prioritizes my time. The skills I developed before and while writing the essay allowed me to grow in my writing allowing me to make more sense in the argumentative. Lastly Proofreading shows you the errors that can be fixed but at the same time we grow. Doing this essay was a fun experience seeing quotes that agree with my opinion and disagree with my opinion. The variations of perspectives on this topic I chose allowed me to see how the real world is because taking sides caused more turbulence which normally happens in our society. Writing about Latinos lack of representation makes my adrenaline go up allowing me to express myself fully. At the same time although I wanted to say many things I had to make sure my writing made sense. Writing about this topic will allow many to have a voice, with an exception to be respectful.
