Luisa Cordova

ENC 1102

Learning Outcomes Reflection

Generating Inquiry

This semester I have been able to achieve the outcome of generating inquiry because I

was able to successfully come up with a research question and proposal. For my research paper

this semester, I decided to look into the artist Harry Styles, and the rhetoric of YouTube videos.

More specifically, I analyzed videos from his fans, those who decided to record themselves live

reacting to his new music and post it to the internet. In the past, it has been difficult for me to

properly generate inquiry, and pick a topic that can be researched. By doing this proposal, I was

able to pick something I was interested in, and maybe look into something that is not typically

wondered about. The specific excerpt from my research proposal that I will be using is, “My

research question is not important in the way that it is going to save the world, but I do think it is

important that people have specific interests, and things that can help distract them from the busy

life they lead. Harry Styles is that escape for some people, and I think it is important to know

how certain songs are received. I would benefit from my own research, just to answer that

curiosity about which album is ranked the highest for fans. I also think this would be helpful who

are just starting to get into his music, and maybe this will give them a place to start. To be more

clear, if you are looking at a new artist for the first time, more than likely you are going to start

by their more popular material.” This work accomplishes the outcome because I was able to find

something that I had been questioning for a long time, and I was able to properly justify why it

was worth finding information about it.

Multiple Ways of Writing

This outcome was achieved through my works cited and annotated bibliography. This ties

into the research genre production, because I was able to view different genres. Videos and

written word are different modalities, and therefore shows that I can use both modes to come to a

conclusion.

Information Literacy

Doing the entire research paper contributed to this outcome. This is because I have been

able to ethically find primary and secondary sources for this paper and use them properly and in

a relevant way. I am quoting parts of my paper to show this. To begin, “For my primary sources,

I had to go on a search throughout YouTube. I knew I was going to be doing rhetorical analysis,

because would be the best way to decipher which of his three albums is best received.”

(Cordova, 3). One of the most important things about finding research is that it needs to be

ethically sourced. Not only that, but it needs to be relevant, as all of my sources are. For my

secondary sources, I said: “Finding secondary sources was more difficult. I not only included a

source we talked about in class but had to find more. It was difficult because there are not a lot of

academic sources relating to Harry Styles and his career,” (Cordova, 4). Once again, I made sure

I collected it ethically, and they were all credible sources. Not only did I overcome challenges, I

proved that I was able to find relevant information to my paper, as niche as it is.

Research Genre Production

I have worked on this learning outcome this semester by being able to find academic

resources. My research paper was based on the discourse community of Harry Styles fans.

Because of this, I had to look at videos, and those are a different type of genre than what people
typically look at. I had to navigate looking for rhetorical signs, and figuring out what they mean.

For this outcome, I am just including my works cited, because it is the way to show that I have

cited videos, and written genres for my secondary sources. Being able to cite all those sources

and use them in my paper shows that I was able to find multiple pieces of information to relate to

this specific discourse community.

Contributing Knowledge

The annotated bibliography is what demonstrated that I achieved the learning outcome of

contributing knowledge. I have achieved this because I have been able properly analyze my

primary sources and draw conclusions from them. An excerpt from my annotated bibliography

shows this, “While this video is one of the longer ones, at an hour and fifteen minutes in length,

these two young women do a breakdown of each song on Harry’s House. They do an in-detail

description of each song and how they feel about it. For example, they spent almost 10 minutes

talking about one song, Matilda. During each song, there is a lot of dancing, and their facial

expressions always seemed like they were having a good and enjoyable time. My findings after

watching this video are that they found the album good, and they seemed to like his most recent

album. They are also reading the little synopsis that Harry left, and his inspiration for each song.

They mention that they feel like this was one of his truest albums, and that they appreciate how

much feeling Harry put into it.” The fact that I was able to view all of these sources and gain

some sort of information shows that I was obtaining knowledge about my topic. Being able to

analyze the rhetoric and use that to my advantage was also helpful in proving this outcome.

Revision
 I did revision all semester long, and it shows in my work. By doing the Unit 1 Reflection,

that was the beginning of my revision. I said, “I revised my research question multiple times.

This is because I could not settle on a good topic to research. I am not very good at finding a

research question that actually has enough evidence for a paper. Once I found s topic that had

enough material for a paper, the question itself did not change. During a 1 on 1, we added a little

more to the question, to make it clearer, but my idea of what I wanted to do did not change at

all,” (Unit 1 Reflection). The multiple drafts of each assignment also show how I made revisions,

and how I took what my peer suggested seriously. Most often the feedback I received was that I

needed to elaborate more on my points, and work on getting all of my information in. I have

been able to edit my work all semester, and make it better.