Estel Boix Noguer

Professor Doutherd
English 5M
25th, November 2017
Writing Experiences

Part 1: Context, Exigence, and Constrains

Even though I decided to be a Journalist when I was in High School, it was not
until last year at Univeristat de Girona when I was able to have a course on Spanish
Journalism. In that class, I had to write a journalistic article criticizing either a speech or
an event we attended during the semester as an assignment. That article, which was the
first I have ever written, made me realize that Journalism is what I am supposed to do;
that I want to be a columnist. Therefore, this section will rhetorically analyze the
column that I wrote for that class. It talks about the speech by Bernat Puigtobella,
director of the cultural website Nvol (cloud in English), at Univeristat de Girona on
November 21st 2016. In his speech, Mr. Puigtobella explained the function of his
website and its history, as well as its current situation in Catalan Journalism.
When it was time to write the column, I found that it was an easy process thanks
to the indications of the teacher. He provided some useful examples (as the five
questions: what, who, how, when, why) and advice for writing as a real journalist.
Moreover, thanks to my extensive and detailed notes, I had a great deal of information
about the conference, such as the organization of Nvol, which was reflected in my final
article.

Part 2: Writing in Arts and Humanities

Following the criteria of the CSUS Handbook: Writing and Researching in Arts
and Humanities, a student from the Journalism department has to write according to the
guidelines, which share several specifics with the other departments of Arts and
Humanities. First of all, students of the departments of Arts and Letters have to explore
questions about human experiences. They use reading, researching, and writing as tools
to achieve it. Secondly, the Handbook describes that scholars make arguments and
support their arguments by using the application of theories, close readings of texts and
other artifacts, and discussions of personal experiences (138). Moreover, when the
theories and the arguments are developed, a conversation of academic discourse
communities are built, which is reflected in journals and books.
Thirdly, the way the scholars from Arts and Humanities share their arguments is
via reviews, critical analysis papers, interviews, creative writing, and scholarly books.
Fourthly, this field does not have the objective of conducting systematic experiments;
instead of that, the main focus is to explore ideas and arguments. As a consequence of
this, papers of Arts and Humanities require less prescriptive language than other
departments, such as science or technology. As the CSUS Handbook states, because
of the theories and arguments expressed by arts and humanities scholars are often
personal and subjective, a personal voice and engaging style is often valued in arts
and humanities writing (139).
 After this analysis, the handbook presents some examples of writing assignments
from Arts and Humanities classes at Sacramento State. Then, a study of how research in
the Arts and Humanities is done. The research is based on the analysis of books,
performances, etc. As mentioned before, the inquiry is more subjective and personal. It
also involves asking opened and focused questions about the material of research
(books, texts, works of art, etc.). The inquiry for creating the papers also involves a
careful analysis of this material, as well as consideration of social and historical forces
that shape the text. Finally, exploring what other experts in the field had said is useful
for the writing (an example would be using quotes or paraphrase).
The last point discussed in the Handbook is what is considered as evidence in
Arts and Humanities. Evidences are more focused on texts and authors than quantitative
data or another type or results. As the handbook states, Its commons for arts and
humanities assignments to require the writer to both closely analyze a text or work of art
or performance and also consider the wider cultural context of the text.(148).
Moreover, the arguments have to be coherent, well-developed, and supported with
evidence. Finally, the handbook remarks the importance of citing the scholars work in
the writing in order to engage with the discourse community of the discipline, as well as
staking out a self position within this community.

Part 3: Discussion

Comparing the writing created during my course, and the points of the previous
part, I believe that the article I wrote would be accepted for a professor from Journalism
or/and Arts and Humanities in Sacramento State.
The writing presented at my journalism course in University of Girona explains
my experience with the speech of the director of Nvol. Writing about experiences is
one of the main focuses in writing in Arts and Letters. Furthermore, the writing of the
speech, which reflects my experience while Bernat Puigtubella was speaking in front of
the audience, does not use a prescriptive language. It is written in a more personal way,
trying to describe the declarations of the speaker as good as possible. Citations were
used in order to engage with the discourse community; in this specific case, citations
were a used to reflect important ideas discussed at the speech. Finally, to write my first
column of the course, I had to analyze the situation of the Cultural Journalism in Spain,
which addresses the fact that in Arts and Humanities we need to write about how the
social forces shape the texts. Fortunately, Mr.Puigtubella explained to the audience
which was the situation of this field.
Nevertheless, there is need to consider that Journalism can be understood in a
different way in the United States and in Catalonia has to be considered. The course that
I took during the studies at Spain was useful because it was the only lesson were I felt
that an interactive model of education was carried out and I got to know what
journalism is. Currently though, Journalism is my current major. Therefore, I will have
the opportunity to practice more and improve my writing skills in the near future. In my
opinion, it is not only important to defend an argument; the originality of the writing is
crucial to being a good journalist.