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Burton Gui
Dr. Lynda Haas
Writing 39B
Aug 28th, 14
A Journey of Deduction
You see, but you do not observe, this is what Sherlock Holmes keeps teaching John
Watson throughout their adventures of solving intricate mysteries. In Writing 39B, Professor
Haas has trained my writing skills with similar puzzles, including detective genre, textual and
rhetorical analysis, which all require me to utilize the similarly Holmesian method. Reflecting
upon the whole quarter, I describe the course as a journey of learning deduction, the useful skill
to analyze academic texts, cinematic materials and my own writing. Honestly, detective fiction
had never been on my reading list because of its fixed patterns and repetitive plots, so I used to
think these stories were meaningless. However, the course uncovered deep meanings beneath
these conventions and took me further discover the cultural and social reasons behind the
evolution and popularity of the genre. At the same time, Professor Haas taught me how to
synthesize different sources into my essays to adapt to university writing and how to gain new
knowledge from online resources by designing and sharing wikis. Most importantly, the habits of
mind Dr. Haas has been emphasizing from the beginning of the course inspire me to reflect upon
my own learning.
First of all, I want to share my feeling and experience of the three weeks at the beginning of

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the course. Because of the first time to enroll online course, I was afraid that I could not adapt to
the new way of studying. Unfortunately, my fears came true. I failed the first two book quizzes
even though I had word-to-word read the fiction and scholarly texts. Without face-to-face
interaction with the professor and classmates, I could not find supports and assistance. Besides,
the online course is very flexible so that I had to develop a habit to regularly check the website
and closely follow the course progress. One the one hand, I was hesitating whether to drop the
class because the online-instructing format made me feel uncomfortable; on the other hand, I
reflected upon my performance within the three weeks and came to realize that I was improving
both in the understanding of texts and the grades of following book quizzes. As I read more
scholarly texts on Sherlock Holmes and Doyle, I was more interested in how a detective story
can reflect such an amount of the image of its time. For example, Watson represents the values of
the Victorian era and ordinary middle class, and the point was used in my rhetorical analysis
essay; the depiction of Tonga reflects the twisted understanding of the aboriginal residents in
English colonies, and I took the interesting interpretation into my literature review to explore
imperialism in The Sign of Four. To make a determination, I fully analyzed my situations. The
self-reflection process was like how Holmes solves his mysteries and deduces a solution, and I
was surprised that I had developed such a deep interest in Sherlock Holmes. The experience is
very meaningful for me because I find my weakness in flexibility, an ability to adapt to new
studying situations, and taste the power of curiosity, which encourages me to determine to
accomplish the course regardless of difficulties.

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After the uneasy three weeks, the literature review essay was coming up. The assignment
required me to critically synthesize scholarly texts into an essay containing my textual analysis.
Instead of expressing my own opinions, I had to precisely present concepts from different
academic materials to complete an idea-consistent essay. To accomplish the writing, I also had to
utilize Holmess method: extracting the common ideas among these scholarly texts, carefully
observing each sentence, collecting textual evidences and synthesizing them into a fluent article
to make a reasonable deduction. The most challenging task I have met was to pick up a satisfied
perspective. While writing discussion forums, I kept changing my topics because I found they
were not interesting or hard to find more than three scholarly texts to support my ideas. Thus, I
was very stressful before the deadline of the first draft. I read all scholarly texts again and again
to seek and extract some thoughts. Finally, the imperialism in the Victorian era I read in
McBratneys "Racial And Criminal Types: Indian Ethnography And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
The Sign Of Four" inspired me, and fortunately, I found more supporting texts in the extra
reading. After researching the period and the munity in India, I gained several solid ideas. During
the writing process, I not only have practiced the skills of doing a textual analysis but also have
developed Engagement, a sense of investment and involvement in learning. I did not merely
complete an assignment; instead, I wanted to write an essay that at least I was satisfied with.
Thus, I invested more time and efforts in exploring my topic and received more knowledge
beyond simply reading required materials.
Similarly, the rhetorical analysis also has taught me how to take advantages of Holmess

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deductive skills and opened a new path to let me examine and appreciate films. Within the
assignment, I have learned basic cinematic knowledge about mise-en-scene, angles, shots and
composition, which all expand my horizon of film analysis. The feeling of closely examining a
film by dividing it into many frames is like using a microscope to observe another amazing
world. A different angle or a small change of mise-en-scene can influence how audience perceive
and understand the meaning or atmosphere within the frame. The cinematic elements illustrate
how contexts can strongly affect directors expression; similarly, a classic literature is interpreted
in different perspectives within different contexts. The goal of the rhetorical analysis is to study
how different social and historical contexts impact the detective fiction. By observing each shot,
the cell of a film, I began to use Holmess method to analyze how his sidekick, Dr. Watson,
keeps his role as a representative of ordinary members in the society and changes his personality
or characteristics to fit the 21
st
audience. This is a valuable writing experience for me, which
helps me develop Openness, the willingness to consider new ways of thinking in the world.
Standing at the points of views of directors and scholars to compare and analyze the evolution of
the detective genre lends me the ability to examine different literature in different perspectives
and to accept various methods to interpret the world.
The essay I chose to fully revise is the literature review not only because I was more
attracted by the Victorian history but also the topic, imperialism, was related to my interest,
sociology. I was shocked how a character with twisted depictions can reflect an ambivalent
feeling from the Victorian British towards their colonies, and how the great detective, Sherlock

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Holmes, can be an avatar of the Imperialism. The topic was very intriguing for me, so I wanted
to fully revise the essay to make it clear to illustrate these interpretations. I think the greatest
strength in the essay is my understanding of each scholarly texts and the historical context. I
have spent most of my time repeatedly reading and doing research on the Indian Mutiny, so I
have set up a solid structure and foundation of the essay. Moreover, in order to enable my readers
to better understand the topic, I gave a plenty of historical backgrounds; also, the examples from
Doyles fiction strongly supported each paragraph. However, the clarity and imprecise word
choice are my main weaknesses within the essay. If I had more time to work on the essay, I
would like to polish the language and make each word appropriately express my meaning. Then,
I decided to rewrite the thesis and revise my fourth paragraph for the rhetorical analysis. I
believe I had some good analysis in the essay but the thesis was very unclear. Kyle Quan, one of
my peer review partners, pointed out that my thesis was confusing, so I chose to rewrite my
thesis and made it solid and clear. The fourth paragraph discussed the reversed parent-child
relationship, which was the most insightful paragraph in the essay, but I did not logically present
the idea. Thus, I chose to revise the paragraph to make it smooth and reasonable.
In terms of collaborative wiki projects, these activities have helped me develop
responsibility. The first wiki project was to create several pages about the lifestyle of upper class
to help other classmates better understand the Victorian England, and I was assigned as the
leader of our group. Honestly, being a leader gave me more stress, especially when I had not
adapted to the online course. However, I did not intend to influence my group members just

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because of my personal problem, so I did my best to outline our projects, assigned equal tasks to
each member and coordinated their problems. Although I was struggling with scholarly texts, I
was happy and grateful to witness the accomplishment of the project. At the same time, I was
glad to confirm that I had the ability to take the responsibility for my group and our project. In
addition to Wiki projects, designing my own e-portfolio gave me chance to develop and improve
my creativity. The e-portfolio is the showcase to present my fruits from the class, so I had put
some efforts to make it more interesting and unique. Also, I could use many methods, including
images and layout design, to demonstrate my writing, which lent more opportunities to play to
my creation.
As for metacognition, I have become a better writer who has more confidence in textual
analysis under different social and historical contexts by using step-by-step observatory
methodology like Holmess deduction. Critical reading Doyles fictions and scholarly texts
taught how to develop hypothesis and follow textual clues to prove my thoughts. It is a useful
technique to help me discover new knowledge and explore different perspectives based upon
existed academic texts. Also, the skill is very crucial for an academic writer who needs to
conduct own experiments. Although I cannot be trained to be a perfect writer through the short
ten weeks, everything I have learned and the spirit of deduction can equip me with better
analytical skills to support my subsequent journey of being a better college writer. In addition, as
an international English writer, I still have to improve my clarity, grammars and word choice. I
think these problems stem from interference of my native language because I still directly

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translate Chinese into English, so some of my expressions seem strange and awkward. However,
the class has taught to analyze my problems and lighted a path to the solution being an
independent English thinker. I believe I can conquer these problems throughout my studying at
UCI.
To sum up, the most essential lesson I have learned from the class is critically reading and
analyzing different texts through similarly Holmesian deductive method. Closely reading and
analyzing have helped me develop insightful writing perspectives and deeper understanding of
my knowledge. Writing is not a process of combining words; instead, it is a process of thinking
and analyzing our world. I used to merely read a book without further digging its further
meaning; now, I have a better skill and sense to observe the ideas and thoughts beneath these
words. Thanks to the course, I have transformed into an observer instead of a reader.