Dear Valentina,

The preconceived notions I had about writing prior to taking Writing 2 did a full 180° and my general
understanding of the writing process has been redefined to include aspects of writing that I previously failed to
acknowledge. At the beginning of the quarter, you instructed us to define “writing” in our own words and I came up with
the most vague definition–the act and process of composing text in order to communicate a message. However, after our
in class discussions where we learned about the components of writing (e.g., genre, audience, style, cohesion, rhetorical
situation, multimodality, etc.) my definition was more developed and reflected my growing understanding of academic
writing. In our class activities where we were able to apply these concepts into our own writing helped me feel more
confident because the frequent practice allowed me to master my ability to think critically from both the writer and
reader’s point of view. Metacognition in the writing process has helped me as a writer to develop my intentions clearly,
figure out how the audience is affected, and overcome possible problems in my own writing process. Although I am
leaving this course with valuable lessons to take further in my academic writing endeavors, I am still interested in learning
more about the benefits and deficits of first and second order thinking. This was a concept we touched on during the last
few days of instruction but it left me wondering when to use first-order thinking and when it’s better to use second-order
thinking. As a writer, I feel like I tend to use second-order thinking, but sometimes I am insecure about my writing
sounding impersonal and not creative enough because I am not writing what comes naturally to me.

In my revision process for WP1, my main objective was to add a significant amount of content to my script of the
conversation by adding more dialogue, incorporating the rest of my sources, and adding a concluding paragraph that
wraps up the conversation’s main points and the new perspective I am left with. These were the most reoccurring
comments I received from my peer feedback and on the rubric that you graded. However, I also received positive
feedback that reinforced the writing skills I demonstrated in my first draft. For instance, many of my peers complimented
me on “incorporating relevant sources and summarizing them in a way that is easy to understand” and the creative element
of my project made the overall conversation interesting to read. In my revisions, I wanted to achieve these effects in my
writing consistently so I made sure to put extra effort in embedding the key points of each source and paraphrasing it to
sound much more casual since this conversation is between a group of friends at a party. I also had a peer suggest
including more blurbs in my script to make it resemble an actual script of a scene being filmed. Therefore, I added how
the camera pans in and out on each person participating in the discussion, and I also wrote small narrations of how each
person is reacting. I think this strengthened my overall writing project because the script I was trying to create matched the
conventions of a typical script much better than my first draft. Additionally, since the conventions and tone of the
conversation mimic a script, the reader is more compelled and drawn into the conversation because this is a genre they are
familiar with. Overall, I enjoyed the creative freedom we were given in this writing project and I liked how I got a better
grasp at how to navigate the UCSB library database. The research portion of the project and library workshop day taught
me valuable lessons about how to properly look for relevant information and how to cite them appropriately. This is a skill
that I want to continue developing in the future because I hold pretty negative preconceptions about citations due to how
nit-picky and tedious it can be. However, I better understand the importance of citations and how each citation style works
better in specific disciplines and writing projects.

In my revision process for the second writing project, in which we translated a scholarly text into a new genre, I
had to focus on applying the cohesion and style skills we were introduced to in lecture. For my WP2, I chose to translate a
research article about the history of drug discovery into a children’s book that is suitable for a younger audience.
Regarding the genre translation itself, the critique that stood out to me the most was the complexity of the language I was
using to describe the actual chemistry involved. The vocabulary is too confusing for a reader with zero background
knowledge, especially since my intended audience are children. This was a challenge I faced during my first writing
process of the project, and I already had to exclude a lot of the science involved to avoid overcomplicating the history and
its real life application. My intent was to give the audience an introduction into the discipline and possibly inspire them to
explore this subject when they’re older. Therefore, I made specific revisions to the first draft to make the tone and
language more reader-friendly by adding a reference page to the end of the book that defines a lot of the recurring
chemistry terms (alkaloids, acid, barbiturates, base, xenobiotics, etc.). I thought this would be helpful to the younger
audience reading my book to have a reference to prevent confusion and difficulty understanding the rest of the
information. Additionally, I added a page to the beginning of the book that defines drugs in a child-friendly yet
informative way. I defined drugs as “any chemical substance that causes a change in your mental and/or physical state,
and they can alter how you feel, think, and behave.” I realized that most children wouldn’t know what drugs are so adding
this page first improved the organization and language difficulties I faced in the first draft. Also, I think I successfully
defined drugs in a way that is factual but excludes the morbidity and mature aspects of drugs–such as the fatalities and
substance abuse issues that go hand-in-hand with pharmaceutical compounds. After simplifying and defining the
complicated language of the discipline, I believe my final translation is more successful in being informative and
appealing to the young audience I am targeting. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this project the most because my writing
skills were much more developed compared to the beginning of the quarter and there was still a lot of creative freedom
given to us. What I liked most about my work in this project was how I excelled in using the multimodality approach to
my writing and including multiple mediums. For instance, my children’s book used a variety of graphics, illustrations,
colors, etc. in order to emit a light-hearted, child-friendly, charismatic tone to the project. Besides the tone, the
multimodality also proved to be effective in communicating the information I had on the slide and I think it would help
the reader gauge what the words mean through the illustrations.

As I approach future writing projects in my academic career, I want to apply multiple skills that I developed
throughout this course in order to strengthen my credibility and confidence as a writer. Specifically, I definitely plan on
using the advice we were given during the library workshop where we navigated the UCSB Library database because I
was shocked at how much access I have to resources from just being enrolled as a student here, and this is something that
I want to take advantage of during the rest of my time here. Additionally, properly conducting research, knowing how to
apply the content of the research text into my own work, and appropriately citing are things that I frequently encounter in
my STEM classes. For instance, my lab reports and research papers require the mastery of the skills I outlined above and
growing more confident in these aspects will be very beneficial to the academic writing assignments I’ll have in my major.
Another key component of writing that I would like to apply in future projects is the ability to understand rhetorical
situations, genres, and audience. Understanding the audience and putting myself in their shoes as a reader has helped me
see the direct effects of my choices as a writer and I can quickly identify the strengths and weaknesses of each stylistic
choice. By taking all of this into consideration when writing future projects, I am very confident that I will be able to
showcase the best of my abilities in my final product. Thank you for your guidance and encouragement throughout this
entire course, it was a pleasure to have you as my instructor!

Sincerely,

Kristine Gil