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Funmilayo Sokabi
Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 37
8 December 2014
A Reflection of Writing 37
In Writing 37: Intensive Writing, Critical Reading & Rhetoric session, we have been
observing the detective genre, more specifically analyzing Sir Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock
Holmes during the Victorian era. We have examined both the detective genre in the Victorian era
focusing on the conditions of that time that allowed Sherlock Holmes, the book and the
character, to thrive. We looked into the birth of the Victorian era and how aspects like the
incompetent police force, the formulaic structure, and how the characters appeal to the audiences
of then and now and etc. The information weve learned from this genre we have turned into
presentations, academic essays, wiki pages and literature reviews. This assisted us in gaining a
better understanding of the detective genre and why Sir Arthur Conan Doyles prototype
continues to thrive throughout the years.
From the texts weve examined, I felt they looked more critically at the detective genre
and the authors that have helped create it. From these texts, Ive gained a broader understanding
of the thought process and reasoning behind the detective genre which was entirely focused on a
crowd who was looking for a leisurely pastime. Ive learned that in order to better grasp the
concepts and context behind a book I need to read with that intent, to understand the book,
instead of looking at a page with a plethora of words. My reading process generally lacks the
ability to look for meaning and I feel in order to establish a better process I would need to read
the book and then take my own notes and compare them to a scholarly review of the book. In this

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case, however, I feel that after reading these texts along with scholarly texts I am able to fathom
more than I would have without looking at these novels with a critical eye. For example, after
reading the scholarly essay about Edgar Allen Poe award recipient, Leroy Panek, I noticed that
both stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle follow a specific formula that was meant to keep the
reader guessing while simultaneously knowing what outcome to expect out of each story. For
example in both The Hound of Baskervilles and A Study in Scarlet the story begins in the
apartment 221B on Baker Street, then a client walks in and Holmes is intrigued by the crime,
then he proceeds to solve it with clues that was overlooked by both the reader and Watson. Ive
also learned that John Watson, Sherlock Holmes cohort, is reflective of the reader. Watson is
meant to appeal to the audience by depicting the same amazement the reader would have had
Holmes been a real person.
Academic writing is meant to appeal to an audience that is looking for information and in
order to do that Ive learned that I must follow specific conventions that will help convey my
message eloquently. In both my literature review and rhetorical analysis I had to first focus on a
convention that I wanted to depict to my audience. The convention must display my knowledge
and expertise on the subject and also successfully convey why I chose this convention. In order
to keep my audience interested, I needed to be able to communicate my conventions concisely
and clearly so that it seemed like I was reading from a dissertation to a writing professor panel.
In my literature review my thesis, I stated Authors like Leroy Panek and George N. Dove
discuss the conventions of the detective genre and how authors like Conan Doyle have been able
to keep their characters alive. I had a weak thesis that did not convey what I was trying to depict
with the rest of the paragraph. The thesis was redundant and lacked conciseness, it also wasnt
arguable and seemed to just be a random sentence that didnt fit my subject at all. My thesis

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wasnt scholarly in language, diction or style and I felt was not general enough. In order to
improve my thesis I focused more on mentioning the authors more than what they were saying. I
poorly performed explaining what the authors were saying that I was going to elaborate on. I
revised it so that Im focusing more on what I want to convey in the paper as a whole instead of
the next sentence. By doing this I feel it would be easier to segue from one paragraph to the next
because my thesis already laid a blueprint out for me. I remodeled my sentence so that it was
more concise and conveyed to me and my scholarly audience what I was trying to say. In my
rhetorical analysis, my thesis was also my weak point in my paper. The thesis I thought best fit
the ideas I was trying to convey in my rhetorical analysis states, The modern Holmes character
has been depicted as an arrogant, socially inept, intellectual sociopath that closely mirrors the
character Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set out to portray, starts off well, but begins to waver when I
forget to mention the main point of my entire paper which is the comparison of both the modern
and classic texts. In order to revise my thesis I condensed it significantly so it was more concise
and also so that it would include modern day texts and the classical texts along with scholarly
texts to back up my thesis. With the help of my peers, I was better able to grasp errors in my
writing that would not have occurred to me otherwise.
Ive learned that peer review is more helpful to me as the reviewer than as a reviewee. In
order to better understand what Im trying to convey I need to look at someone elses work and
find flaws in theirs to flaws in mine. Certain things, such as redundancy and inconsistencies
never occurred to me as Im writing so I when I see it in others work it makes it easier to
recognize it in my own. One of my peer reviewers, brought to my attention that if I read my
paper out loud and then typed my thesis that my thesis would stand a lot stronger with the rest of
the paper instead of spending hours trying to figure out what I want to say.

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Through collaborating, I feel that I was able to gain flexibility with others schedules and
engage in conversation with people I never would usually talk to. In both of my groups we had
days, where arriving to one idea that we all agreed upon seemed impossible and days where we
instantly clicked. In my wiki pages, I always wanted to make sure that my page followed the
same formula as the official Wikipedia website: informative and easy to navigate. In my
presentation, the one I felt I did the best in, I put together a two minute clip that summed up the
key parts in the movie, A Scandal in Bohemia; each of my clips got my point across and also
kept the class interested. I learned through collaboration it is important to keep in constant
contact with your group members to make sure that not only are we each on the same page, but
also what we were trying to depict to our audience complemented each other.
Throughout the class we focused on homework assignments through the Connect module
that tested us on grammar. Looking back at my connect assignments Id say my two most
challenging assignments were both the paraphrasing and conciseness assignments. I realized that
both of these are problems that Ive also found in my writing and it makes sense because in all
honesty I didnt think these were a problem until reading some of the module in the assignment. I
have yet to recharge, but when I do I feel it would be important to focus on these to aspects of
my writing because they are where I struggle most and keep me from writing well. I felt I
struggled with these assignments because they were reflective in what I struggle with in my
writing. I chose to recharge these assignments because I felt that if I practiced them long enough
they would become second nature.
In conclusion, I found that this class helped me in reading a book for its content and
context instead of reading words strung together on a page. This class has helped me focus on
areas where I struggle and have helped me to improve most of them. I feel that I could easily

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take what Ive learned and apply to other classes, especially since these skills are crucial in good
writing. This class forced me to look at my own work and the work of my peers with a critical
eye. By focusing on collaborative works I found the mistakes in others writing that I felt were in
my own, so it was easier for me to go back and revise.

I chose to completely redo this assignment because I felt the original draft did not showcase my
writing abilities. Instead of simply turning the paper in, I read the paper aloud to myself and
continued to ask myself the question: If this was someone elses paper, would you mark them
down for this sentence/paragraph? By doing this I found simple grammar mistakes that
couldve been easily avoided, but werent due to my negligence. I also omitted a lot of sentences
that seemed to only be fluff, because they elongated my paragraphs with useless and pointless
information. Where Ive highlighted, I highlighted because in my original draft these sentences I
felt confident in, but after revisiting the draft I felt could use major improvement.