Vanessa Zuniga

Final Reflection

I learned the tool of using a scene in a personal essay. Writing a scene in the essay adds a

new layer that establishes a closer connection to the readers and the author. Originally, I would

write my essays as more of a narrative. I noticed that in my essays I would explain situations and

experiences as examples to support my argument, but it did not clearly and powerfully

emphasize my point and establish that emotional connection with the reader. However, the

technique of placing that example as a scene has the readers feel as if they are experiencing the

moment with the author. This creates a better argument and understanding that better supports

the claim. I used this technique in my essay about my life with soccer. In the original draft of the

essay I just described examples. Nothing had any depth to it. Therefore, because of this, it made

my analysis shallow as well. However, placing in the scene, it better emphasizes my argument of

living your life for your own dreams and by your own decisions by highlighting the moment of

the turning point of my life where I did something I wanted for a change. I will use this

technique because it is a fun and creative way to add a new layer to an essay and make it more

interesting to read.

Another technique that I learned was an editing skill. This was the highlighting of

different aspects of the sentences such as the beginning word of the sentence, verbs, commas and

other punctuations, and vague words. Highlighting these elements emphasized to me the words

that I would use too often and would need to change to prevent unneeded repetition. This was

seen in my rhetorical analysis essay, especially in the section where I described a scene. I used a

lot of repetition of the word said and made my essay not as elevated sounding as it could be.
Reading and editing it without the highlighting, I would not have noticed how often I used

nonspecific words and used unnecessary repetition.

In addition to the highlighting editing technique, the reverse editing technique was also

very helpful. By reading the essay from the ending sentence to the beginning, I was able to catch

more mistakes in grammar or clarity. Also, learning the proper usages of a common helped me

with my writing. Knowing the different structures gives me more variety in my writing structure

that can make it more interesting to read. It also made me notice the sentence structures that I

typically use. I used this technique mostly in my essay about my life with soccer and the

rhetorical analysis essay about the word weeaboo. When I read through and was editing the

essays from the end to the beginning, I noticed a lot of places where I could add commas and

places where I did not need them. I also noticed places where my thoughts were not specific or

did not come off as clear as I had wanted. Therefore, I plan to keep using these new techniques

in editing in my writing process for future writings.

Another technique I learned was glossing. This technique takes each paragraph of the

essay and gives it a short phrase or word to as a title that summarizes the paragraph. These titles

are then used to help reorganize the essay. For my rhetorical analysis essay I attempted this

technique. I rearranged the essay, placing the ending paragraphs at the start and mixing the other

paragraphs into interesting new locations. I did not like this method. It was strange to move these

paragraphs around from where I originally had written them to go. When I read the essay in the

new reorganizations, the essay felt strange and it felt as if the flow was thrown off, so I did not

use the technique. However, despite my dislike of the reorganization for this essay, I do still

think this technique will be a helpful tool to have for future essays.
 Writing is a process. You cannot write an essay once and have it be perfect. There are

many layers that go into an essay that make it grow to be a great essay. This also applies to

argumentation. Argumentation and rhetorical essays are layers of analysis, self-opinions, and

borrowed philosophies of others. These layers create depth to the essay and establish a stronger

claim. For example, my rhetorical analysis essay about the word weeaboo, the essay did not have

a clear argument in the original draft. All that I expressed was a weak analysis of the article post

and a shallow attempt at an analysis. However, as I started working on it more and learning

about new layers to place in it, my essay began to develop an actual beginning of an analysis. I

used layers of analysis using philosophies from McWhorter.

In the class we learned that everything is an argument. I agree with this. Everything we

say, everything we do, and every decision we make is an argument for our beliefs and thoughts.

What we create demonstrates our perspective on the world and how we learned to shape beliefs

from our experiences. This is evident in writing. For example, in my personal argument essay,

the one about living for yourself, I argue that the people around us place pressures and

expectations on the decisions we make and our future. In order to live your own life, you must

fight for what you want because it is your own life to live not someone elses. This argument was

formed from my own experience in my life. I was pushed to do things that I hated because other

people had certain expectations and dreams that they wanted me to meet. It did not make me

happy so I fought for my own dreams. However, someone else might argue against me saying

that parents know what is best so they should listen and follow their expectations because they

do it out of love. This belief was formed because thats how they experienced life and shaped

that believed. Arguments are not always aimed at winning. It is the sharing of new perspectives.
Hearing from different perspectives helps us learn from others in order to better understand the

people and world around us.