Tianyi Ma

Writ 2
Zack De Piero

Metacognitive Reflection
I am surprised, right now standing at the end of this quarter and looking back, by
how far I have traveled and how many obstacles I have overcome. This course, writing 2,
raised so many challenges, like mountains, in front of me. However, each time I defeat
them, I found I stand higher. Challenge have fostered development. This course has
helped me develop to a writera person know how to communicate effectively with his
audience in the form of writing.
The first concept I encountered in this course is genre, and it first altered my
viewpoint about writing classes. Before I came into this class, I thought it should be
exactly same as an English class, in which we would be forced to read Shakespeares dull
and obscure masterpieces and then inevitably tons of reflection papers would await us.
However, there were nothing as horrible as that in this class. We were taught about
writing instead of literature. I think this was the first surprise this class gave to me, and
because of this reason, I gradually became interested in this class later on.
Go back to genre. Genre is a concept guiding me to write. Anything written in
languages has a genre, and each genre has its own conventions. Although we do not
recognize them, we subconsciously perceive genres every day. I think it is a very
interesting concept. After I learnt what is genre, I found that identify which genre the
article is written in is another goal of reading. Through identifying the genre and its
conventions, I can gain knowledge about these different genres. And then, as I need to

write something that I never wrote or touched before, I can rely on my knowledge of
similar genres to guide me to write.
Besides, learning genre also caused me to thinking about writing. For instance,
in WP1, I decided to perform my research on economic news articles. During this
process, I asked myself many stupid questionswhy economics news articles always
contain data? what kind of information they want to convey? what features they have in
common? and why economic news articles have their own conventions. By doing so, I
realized that learning to write is not only learning how to express your ideas in proper
language. It is far more complicated than that. Sometimes to write also means to inform
and to persuade. And therefore, learning genre led me to appreciating the importance of
rhetoric.
Rhetoric is the art of persuading. In general, there are three modes of persuasion:
logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos is to convince your audience by logic and reason. Ethos
is to convince your audience by your credibility or character. Pathos is to convince your
audience by emotion. Although I have not had a chance to practice utilizing these three
persuasion modes in my own writings, I can analyze the article I read in terms of these
three modes. For instance, I can recognize that including data and graphs in academic
paper is a use of logos because they appeal to the audiences intellectual side. By figuring
out how authors persuade their intended audience, my own ability of applying these three
rhetorical actions improves. Also, these three modes of persuasion provide me with tools
to dissect the persuading approach of different articles, helping me learn writing by
myself not only in this quarter but also in the future.

Moreover, rhetoric situation is another tool I can draw upon to learn writing.
Thinking about the audience, exigence, affordance and constraints of a genre really
enables me to learn this genre more thoroughly. Just like what I did in WP3, considering
rhetoric situation helped me even write a genre that I never have experience on.
All in all, these concepts I learnt from this course enabled me to read like a writer.
Since I take into all these elements that play important roles in writing, I can more deeply
understand the authors motivation to make his/her moves and probably choose to
make some moves when needed. And when I can read like a writer, I will think like a
writer. I believe the process of learning these concepts gradually converted my viewpoint
to a writers viewpoint. To consider who is your audience and which genre you will write
in, I ask myself how to persuade instead of how to write. Such change in the way of
thinking, I believe, will benefit me in the future. Therefore, I feel very lucky that I was
taught how to think like a writer.
In addition to the change in the way of thinking, my writing skills are also honed
by each Writing Projects. Compared to other two WPs, WP1 is less time-consuming and
demanding; however; it taught me an important lesson about structure. In WP1, I divided
my paper traditionally into five parts: introduction, argument 1, 2, 3 and conclusion. I
think most people were encouraged to write a critical think essay in such way in high
school. Nonetheless, as you (Zack) commented, one-page long paragraphs are a strong
representation of my article's weak organization and structure. Also, the biggest drawback
of a super long paragraph is that it increases the difficulty for readers understanding my
paper. To imagine your ideas as a huge cake. When you cut it into multiple pieces, it is
easier for readers to digest each of them. But as a whole, no one can devour it entirely.

Therefore, after WP1, I always intentionally avoid writing everything in a super long
paragraph.
WP2 is a much harder one. We were required to compare the differences between
academic and non-academic writings. Two types of genre are so different, yet to specify
how they differ from each other in a concise manner is also so difficult. To decide what to
cover and what to leave aside is an art of writing. Focusing on a specific thing, and then
you can make the analysis specific and strong, whereas, splitting your analyses all over
the place, none of them can make a sound. Sometimes, less is more.
From my perspective, WP3 is the hardest as well as the most fun project. We were
asked to transform an academic paper into two non-academic genres targeting on younger
and older audience respectively. I chose two genres, instructional article and meeting
agenda, that I never had haven any experience on, and hence while I was writing them I
never stopped asking myself what "moves" I could make to persuade my audience.
Although this project was not sufficient to train myself to be a qualified author of
instructional articles or meeting agendas, it did provide me with an opportunity to
practicing writing for intended audience. To adjust your writings to meet the expectation
of different groups of audience, I think, was what this project taught me. This skill will
benefit me now and in the future.
At last, I want to appreciate the writing tips you (Zack) gave to us in each class.
For me, the most useful one is the use of dash and hyphen. Hyphens combine two single
words into a new one, and properly using them can help me express a complex meaning
by one single word. Dashes function in a sentence almost the same way as commas,
which means breaking thoughts or adding details. However, dashes can invite a pause

inside a single sentence separating the whole phrase into several parts. By doing so,
dashes make my primary idea flow more fluently. Moreover, if I only use commas, the
main part of my sentence cannot be visually reflected; using dashes can effectively avoid
such situation.
Despite this quarter has ended, what I have learnt from this class will always be
bore in my mind. I learnt how to read and think like a writer, which gave me insight into
what is writing and how to learn writing; I learnt from three writing projects, which
honed my skills and provided me with valuable experience and lesson; I also learnt
writing tips that make writing easier. These changed me bit and bit, and finally I find I
have known writing much better than before.