Alawami 1

Lina alawami
Ella Frances
11-17 -2014
ENGLISH 1102
Course Reflection
This entire class had been a source of learning for me as I got to learn a number of
aspects regarding professional writing skills. In most of my writings, I have noticed that I
used to lack in the structure of writing because I am an international student and English
is my second language, so I faced a lot of issues in my learning and writing processes.
However I, still managed to complete all my work thus I never wanted to lose marks or
make my professor feel that I face issues in learning. I did my best and was successful in
learning. In my blog writing, the important topics which interested me were based on
things about me, which I have written. There are also some topics, which I feel like
cropping out of, like the one, in which I wrote about an argument about me and my
cousin; I felt shy posting this blog.
My writing strategy of proof reading turned out to be pretty effective for me as I
always used to re-read all my assignments over and over in order to make sure that there
are no grammatical errors, lack of sequence and structure and also to make sure that
everything has been well-written in the professional way. This technique and strategy has

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helped me in improving my professional writing as well. In most of my writings, I have

noticed that I faced the issue of sentence structure because of lack of proficiency in the
English language; I often used to make unstructured sentences, which made my writing
appear somewhat immature way.
Early on in the semester, I had a difficult time discerning between Ethos, Logos,
and Pathos, so I had to translate them in Arabic and see the real meaning to understand
the three appeals. However, I noticed that I heavily relied on Pathos when I expressed my
feelings in journal 3 when I talked about how my life is going in the past few years. In
addition, I used Pathos, Logos, and Ethos in journal 9 (stop bullshitting). Although I did
not use them intentionally when I start writing my paper, but I knew that I used them
before I revised my paper. Pretty much of that had to do with me when I realized that I
was not simply telling the readers Listen to me because I know what I am talking,
about, I was citing a social issue, which Im also experiencing and I am arguing why the
readers should be concerned about the issue. I think this shows how important the
revising process is in determining the particular rhetorical techniques and how each may
or may not have been displayed. Without learning to identify the rhetorical appeals and
decipher the techniques, analyses would not have developed to support my claims.

My best writing includes the one in which I wrote the self-reflection journal for
the class as I was pretty confident and proud about the skills and learning I gained

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throughout this course, because of which I was also able to express my thoughts in a
better way in the paper. I have learned about writing that one cannot just write any
professional piece of writing in one go or by doing it at one time, but instead it is a long
process which needs a lot of practice and hard work along with time which should be
given to the writing practice in order to have more and more improvement in the writing
skills. This is what I have done and I was being able to achieve the best out of it. I think
learning something is tough until you have the dedicated and time to actually make it
happen.
At the beginning of writing the EIP assignment, I had the chance to think of any
topic I want to explore about. This assignment was the hardest thing in this class because
it is only my second time doing research and I am not used to it, so I worked so hard for it
And with the great methods my professor used to make us think more and more about
what we are looking for made it much easier. She made us write a draft and share it with
our group to see some aspects from different point views. And because of that I had a lot
of ideas that helped me to complete my assignment.

The most amazing thing that made me proud of myself in this class is creating this
portfolio. I felt so confident posting my assignment and my work. While I was posting
my work I was wondering how I became better now and how I can prove myself at the
end of this class and I hope it gets even better in the future. Writing was not an

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experience that I enjoyed in the past couple of years, especially when you write in
different language, but this class helped me to enjoy writing and reminds me of what I
have accomplished. Im very glad that I got the chance to develop my writing skills. I
think I deserve an A in this class because I have worked really hard and have tried my
best to submit all of my assignments on time. My effort and dedication for the class and
my writing skills make me deserving for an A in the class. I have given all my effort
and time in this class.