Nuñez, 1

Perla Nuñez

Allison Bocchino

Writing 2

16 March 2020

My Writing Experience

I was not very ecstatic when I entered Writing 2 at the beginning of the quarter. I think

because I have always had difficulty writing essays, those negative feelings went towards this

course, even if I tried to keep a positive outlook. Luckily as time went by I found that although

each writing assignment progressively included more work, I was slowly improving in my

writing based on the grades I was receiving. Seeing myself being able to take these assignments

and create five to six pages of analysis and explaining my thoughts made me realize that at times

I did not give myself credit for papers I wrote. Some students found it best to outline their essays,

but what worked best for me was writing down the ideas into a paragraph as they came to my

head, then rearranging as needed. Similar to the journals we did during class, my ideas were

more free flowing and easier to come up with using this method. When I thought of creating an

outline my mind created a mental block, and I suddenly stressed myself out for no reason, so this

method wasn’t of great use to me, at least in this course. Personally I noticed that whenever I

wrote my papers I wrote in the past tense and in third person. Additionally, I realized that I really

enjoyed creating scenarios and being descriptive within the introductory paragraph as a way to

open up my essays. For example, in my WP1 I described a freshman moving into college, a

scenario that my peers and I could relate to, and therefore made the process of writing more fun

and personal.
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Throughout the project builders and writing projects I was able to work around different

genres. When defining a genre I looked to the first week in the course at Bickmore’s breakdown

of ​a “typified utterance that appears in a recurrent situation,​”1 meaning it is a typical

characteristic of language that happens throughout everyday life within similar situations. Being

first introduced to the concept of a genre, I was very taken aback by the huge variety of genres

that existed all around me, and up until Writing 2 I had no clue of their presence. At the

beginning of the course we got into small groups and decided whether a variety of different items

were genres with our peers, and that helped me familiarize myself with genres and explain my

reasoning as to why I believed they should be categorized as such.

Diving deeper behind genres I started looking at what choices authors used to be most

effective with their audiences. Being able to figure out why writers made those decisions,

otherwise known as reading like a writer, was essential for readers like myself. As Bunn stated,

“you are trying to figure out how the text you are reading was constructed so that you learn how

to ‘build’ one for yourself. ”2 Once being able to analyze what rhetorical devices or even

rhetorical arguments were being used, only then could I apply them into my writing. I had to

experience the effect of these devices first hand within other examples to therefore be able

recreate it in my own writing and produce the same effect on my audience. This process alone

made me become a very observant reader and made me pay close attention to techniques being

used. Before reading Bunn, I was oblivious to the writer’s choice and what that meant for the

1
​Lisa
Bickmore, “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems,”
PressBooks, August 1, 2016.
2
​Mike Bunn, “How to Read Like a Writer,” ​Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing​ Volume 2,
(2011): 73.
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success of their writing, and that’s where I went wrong with my previous papers. Having this

perspective not only broadened my writing tools, but it helped me introduce that different

mentality into my writing. My options seemed limitless when choosing between a variety of

rhetorical devices and arguments; whether it be rhetorical questions, metaphors, personification,

argumentum ad populum (appeal to public), argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority),

etc.

My revision process started with Writing Project 1 because it was my lowest grade, and I

had the least experience when writing it. Starting at the beginning with the content of the

introductory paragraph, I added to the last part of the thesis in order to become as specific as I

could with the layout of my paper. Within this paper I also decided to include one of the in class

readings we did, and that was Bunn’s “How to Read like a Writer”3 when referring to the

techniques used by the authors of a flyer. Before writing this WP I did not have access to Bunn’s

reading, but once reading it I felt it was applicable in this writing. In addition to that change, I

added an example to the paragraph explaining a flyer’s layout form to provide a better concrete

detail. In my third paragraph I changed the topic sentence I originally had because instead of

focusing the paragraph on sentence structure of the genre, I focused on the ideas displayed on the

flyers. Not only did I make sure to change all verbs to the same tense, but when rereading the

paper I removed words I found unnecessary in the sentence.

Along with the first Writing Project, I also revised Writing Project 3 because it was the

assignment I placed more creativity into and enjoyed writing. Ironically, although I received a

better grade for this paper, more revisions went into it, specifically with the organization.

3
​Mike Bunn, “How to Read.”
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Originally I had mentioned two in class readings towards the end of the paper on the last page,

but to better integrate the sources I placed the readings throughout the paper, seen on pages 2, 4

and 6 and included one more of the class readings. Furthermore, in terms of content organization

I included another paragraph when explaining the translation of the peer reviewed essay into the

poem, to give readers insight into the thought process behind my choosing of the specific rhyme

scheme and number of stanzas. I also came to fix a lot of punctuation errors made throughout the

paper that I would have never paid attention to if it was not for Allison’s comments and taking a

look into the pocket manual. I would subconsciously place commas before a conjunction, and I

failed to realize the conjunction was not between two independent clauses, therefore not needed.

Making changes to my citations was another part of the revision process in my WP3.

Considering that this was my first time being introduced to the Chicago style of citations, I made

a few mistakes when citing the sources I used. In this revision I mastered the bibliography of

Chicago style citations. Similarly, in the footnotes of the paper I was able to distinguish when to

use commas and periods, which I failed to notice at the beginning of writing my essays.

Being able to form small groups and create workshops in efforts to revise the writing

projects was of big help. My peers’ comments helped guide my writing process because they

would give honest answers to what I was most concerned about in my paper. Additionally, they

would give suggestions on changes that could be made to improve the overall essay, such as

adding to the thesis to make it more concise. Not only did the workshop allow us to give each

other feedback, but it also allowed me to take a look into different examples of the same prompt.

In reference to Bunn’s reading4 I was able to see if style or techniques were effective within my

4
​Mike Bunn, “How to Read.”
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peer’s writing and then possibly incorporate similar ones in my writing. Workshop was a time

where I had to reflect how the audience, otherwise seen as the other students in the class, saw my

writing. Their responses and comments were a result of what they found effective in my writing

or not.

Writing 2 has opened me up to the UCSB library database and allowed me to find and

analyze the needed sources for a paper; not to mention coherently include them in essays to

provide support or commentary to claims made. I think this is a skill I am still struggling to

master, especially when it comes to decoding the jargon included within many of the articles

found on the database; nevertheless it is an important skill received within the course. More

importantly, it is a skill useful in my future writing as well. Taking my time and looking at the

introduction, conclusion, and subheadings of these online articles are a few ways that have

facilitated the job of understanding the author’s message. Knowing that it is okay for me to not

fully understand the entire scholarly article has been a reassuring tip that I have always kept in

mind as well. Being able to cite other authors in bibliographies and footnotes to avoid plagiarism

and to give credit to their work is something applicable in a number of other courses and visible

in the near future.

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Bibliography

Bickmore, Lisa. “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”

PressBooks. August 1, 2016.

https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-

within-rhetorical-ecosystems/.

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” ​Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing​ Volume 2,

(2011): 71-86. http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/bunn--how-to-read.pdf.