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Martinez, Rosa

Dr. Nelson, Sharity

English 1302-122

1 December 2022

Final Reflective Essay

This semester I was introduced to analysis and its different categories and subcategories.

Throughout this course, I learned many ways to analyze a document or advertising. The three

categories we wrote about were genre, visual, and rhetorical analysis. I was able to write and

experience new writing styles that I had never tried before; it was educational and exhilarating.

We had to write two rough drafts for each essay and go through peer-review workshops to see if

we had anything wrong with our assignments. The review workshops were not the best and often

provided less information. However, there were times when I had a classmate point out my

faults. To improve I made sure to seek help from other peers and find tutors that are well-versed

in the subject.

When revising each essay, I focused on grammar and changing the parts that were

pointed out during the peer review workshop and the comments left by the teacher. It is not easy

to change something that is already written because I don’t see my mistakes. To locate my

mistakes, I like using an app called Grammarly, this site has helped me many times with my run-

on sentences and other incorrect spelling mistakes I make. In my first essay, I used the advice

from my teacher, although I couldn’t put everything, I wanted to because of time management

problems, I was able to change some of the points that were addressed to me during the semester.

The second essay was better, and I almost got rid of every grammar issue, but the coherence is a
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bit off. In my third essay, I was able to expand my wording, but it has many faults and needs

more tuning. I am not proud of everything I have done because they could have used more fine-

tuning. In the last essay, I did not feel confident, and I know there isn’t much to it because that

was the only essay I dint go to ACE for help. I felt lost but glad that I was able to receive advice

that pinpoint everything I’m still doing wrong. As the semester ends, we were told to do a

website and that website was difficult to get used to but easy to use with a little help from

homework assignments.

 Some rhetorical choice I made when designing my website is to make it as neat as

possible. I tried to make my website legible and straight to the point so the person who is willing

to sit there and read my essays will be able to locate them fast and without a problem. However,

not everything goes as planned and it looks messy but legible.

Some activities that influence my revisions were the peer reviews we had in class. For example,

on September 16 we did our first peer workshop, and I was told that I had a strong thesis, and

nothing needed to be fixed. However, they were way off and ended up giving me false advice. I

went to ACE (Academic center of excellence) and they told me that my paper was wrong and I

needed to rewrite everything once again. My biggest help when writing the essay was ACE, they

helped me go step by step until I could understand. Not only did ACE help me achieve the goal

of the essay they offered to help with the following one as well. With my second essay, I tried to

give peer review another try, on September 16 I asked more direct questions such as “Do I have

a thesis?” and they responded that “yes” but “it’s not the best.” I went to ACE the next day and

wrote down everything I could so I could remember to follow an equation the next time. In

accordance with many tries, I figured that if I do it with other courses, I can become better at it

but that was difficult to do.

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In my first analysis, I figured that anyone could use this type of writing even if they are

not writing the same type of analysis as I am. For example, I was able to use this type of writing

when posting on the internet. Many communities value the joy of depicting every little thing in

an image. In my first essay, I did Genre analysis which means that I had to talk about a

community and what they were doing so that I can better understand why everything is placed

where it is placed. This type of analysis is not common to use in real life but it’s common to use

it in other classes that value this type of work. Other people that tend to use this are writers,

writers who are not part of the school, and writers who write for a living. For example, some

type of analysis that is helpful is visual analysis because people tend to think things through and

end up doing a visual analysis without wanting or meaning to. A field that may use this is an

artistic field. They must analyze each aspect of the painting or artwork to see how everything

blends. The people who must work with design do this too because they must place everything in

order so that it could catch the attention of the buyer or attendee. Many other fields use this to

their advantage so that they could appeal to a broader audience just like Description of the flyer,

my essay does not include visual elements, but it does include the appeal to the population and

the targeted audience. This is a prime example of visual but not an example of visual analysis.

In my third essay, I learned that this type of analysis could be used in other courses. For

example, this assignment was useful for my UNIV class because I was gathering information

about my future career to build a presentation, I used this opportunity to kill two birds with one

stone. Not only did this assignment coincide with the material of another it was also helpful to

learn to analyze the aspects of my career. In conclusion, yes, it is adaptable to other classes and

there are benefits in using these methods for future reference in other classes. Some course that

this could be applied to is English 1302 since that class will need to use MLA format as well.
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This is a course that I will take next semester due to it being a required one. Furthermore, this

course will help me evaluate and expand my knowledge, which is a benefit to my education.

Although this writing style benefited many circumstances it doesn’t apply to everything, and

some courses don’t have the same format as these writings do.

This citing style does not apply to other courses such as the science department and

history. For example, science uses the APA format, and history uses Chicago manual style

format. Although there is not much that can differentiate this analysis and other topics, it is

different from many styles of writing. The difference in styles can change depending on the

essay. For example, my citing was “Image from framebyframe_animations. Instagram (2022)

http://ow.ly/iNy050GefAt” This is an example that I used during my second essay and this style

does not apply to other courses.

My writing skills have improved since my last essay. A few weaknesses that I have

retained since my last essay is the fact that I still need to form a thesis and a topic sentence that

connects every paragraph. I have not mastered either of these; I still have difficulty writing them

because my head naturally goes to specifics instead of trying to give a preview of the body

paragraphs. The weaknesses have not changed throughout these two essays; however, they have

improved in essay two. They improved because I am using my resources such as ACE tutoring

and my peer reviews. For example, my reviewers said that I needed to work on my thesis and

that I needed to expand my thoughts on certain elements. In addition to my horrible writing style,

I have concluded that I need more practice. I am sure that these failures will make me a better

writer in the future. One positive thing I have retained from these exercises was that my grammar

went improving with time. I know that grammar is not a weakness, but it is something that I can

improve on. Many aspects were challenging and hard to understand and I even had to rewrite my
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essays many times until I found something remotely close to the subject. Rewriting does not

mean I am a failure; it means that I have room for improvement. I noticed my writing improving

in the second essay Red lily and its controversy I believe that was my favorite but it was also the

one I had to rewrite two times because I was off-topic.

The most challenging part of the website was the formatting. Although I had a homework

assignment on November 17 about "Weebly tutorial for beginners", I found it challenging to

accommodate everything that was said in that video. In the video, it seems easier and less

complicated, however, when I made my website, I had trouble finding where things were

supposed to go. For example, when I opened the website, I was told to pick a theme and then go

from there, the fact that the website is full of categories and sections was confusing. I understand

that the format of the website is practical and efficient but having to go into three different

sections just to make your category is impractical. However, the website did pull through and I

got used to it quickly after a day. The website has many great themes and layouts and even

though we can’t use any special fonts background it is still customizable to the point that I

changed the background to a color I preferred more, and it gives the option of maximizing the

letters, changing the color of the letters, and even placement. The layout of the website was neat

and all I had to do was add boxes or spaces to make room for the scribds. The thing that wasn’t

pleasing when using the app is that there is no reverse button and there isn’t any way to add more

to the box below. I tried to add boxes below the Scribd and they kept going up instead of down.

Thankfully there was a section on top of the section that said ‘move’ after that, I just moved it to

the same page and selected for it to go down. Even though the experience was tiering because I

lost everything last minute and had to rebuild the website, it was fun being able to use the site
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and publish my writing on the internet. Because of this course, I was able to experience many

new writing styles and now I am glad to say my style changed this semester.

My identity as a writer has changed since my first essay, I was able to describe the

elements from the flyer and say why they were incorporated into the image. In comparison, in

my second and third essays, I had to change my point of view and had to explain the meaning

behind the words or phrases the author used. As stated, before in my first reflective essay I used

to be very straightforward with my wording and had a challenging time not using “I.” Another

thing I have noticed that has changed is the way I was analyzing my essays. In the first one, I

was writing formally and this time I used ethos, pathos, and logos to analyze. With everything

that has been written throughout the essays, it is understandable that my writing style changed.

As I am getting more diverse in my writing style. Furthermore, I noticed that I use more

conservative and expressive language when writing instead of keeping it short. My style will

continue to change and adapt to other assignments just like it adapted to this course.
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Work Cited

Martinez, Rosa. “Description of the flyer.” 4 October 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

Martinez, Rosa. “Red lily and its controversy.” 13 October 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

Martinez, Rosa. “Systems Engineering Knowledge and Skills For Water And Environmental

Problems.” 3 November 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M International University, student paper.

Nelson, Sharity. “Peer Review Workshop.” 7 November 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, homework assignment.

Nelson, Sharity. “Peer Review Workshop.” 8 October 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, homework assignment.

Nelson, Sharity. “Peer Review Workshop.” 16 September 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, homework assignment.

Summers, Charlene. “Description of Homework Assignment.” 17 November 2022. ENGL 1301,

Texas A&M International University, homework assignment.