My first writing class at City College of New York was freshman writing inquiry in food history, which was difficult for me to write about, because I found out I didn’t enjoy writing about food history. I struggled to find the nuance in food texts that I had to go through and felt uncomfortable in the class, despite this, I think that it did help break a mold that intimidated me from writing which is that  writing is an attempt. This phrasing made me feel more comfortable about writing things as I did not put as much pressure on myself to make miracle sentences that strike at the heart of literature. The class did make me feel terrible though, because all my attempts in that class were garbled wastes of time, had I chosen a different class I might’ve had a better time. Writing for the Sciences was definitely a good change of pace which made me feel more in my element and has helped me practice writing styles that I feel motivated to put into action. I think that when I write I try to think about how to inform possible readers with the topic I am interested in and how to introduce the information to help create new understanding, though my usual attempts do not often reach those standards. During this reflection I will show my interpretation of “Respice, Adspice, and Prospice,” as I will be reflecting on my past experiences with english classes, my experiences with this semester’s class, and what I will be taking into my future writing assignments.

  While making attempts in writing styles in various genres including a rhetorical analysis, a descriptive paper, and a controversy paper, I practiced some of the course objectives such as searching for research articles on databases and peer collaboration to improve our writing pieces. While doing responses for New York Times science section articles I viewed many examples where authors would try to entice the reader by making a pop culture reference or add adjectives to emphasize the information’s impact. I used some of those techniques to practice using rhetorical strategies such as inserting tone along information in the power of observation essay, in science especially popular science the writer has to make information engaging while also preserving accurate information. 

While doing peer collaboration especially in peer review, I could see writing differences which I may admire or try to improve, some people in our class are more qualified than others to edit papers, but either way the peer review helped me put my paper into perspective as I would ask if my paper sounded good and how could I improve it. When reviewing my peer’s papers I sometimes spot writing  techniques that really flow after which I try incorporating my own writing, the writing samples also provided me with good structure that I could use. I sometimes found that my peer was so much more set up than I was that I felt bad for not being able to offer good substantive writing advice so I tried describing the tone that I perceived from their paper, but I do not feel that it is as helpful. The class part of collaboration was interesting also, because of the added input from other classmates who have different perspectives which there could be over 20 different perspectives, although there is not a guarantee of an interesting discussion. After the class sessions stopped I tried looking at other people’s prompts on Blackboard and I found things that I would miss in the prompt and there can be more differentiated views as our peer’s initial responses are not influenced by each other and I can still view their responses without having to pressure them to contribute.

Caption: Comment made by my peer for the Scientific Controversy

Caption: A comment I made for my peer

While researching for my controversy paper and while looking for a research paper to analyze I utilized multiple databases such as the CCNY database which listed a vast quantity of databases. For my rhetorical analysis I found the Arxiv.org database onesearch and from there I found an unpublished paper which I analyzed for my rhetorical analysis, for my controversy paper I searched for my topic on one search and found multiple articles which also have the citation for my references, however it was not what I needed so I used a ncbi database and looked through the references of papers I found interesting. The media sources for the controversy paper also tend to reference other works so I looked through those for information. When including information from my references to use in papers I would often include the information without the citation in the text then I would try to scan my paper for the information and include the citation after it. My process of including reference information is alright in my opinion, but recently I saw that there was software that could assist in citing information concurrently with writing. The software I saw online would have a side tab to put references and will have a function to automatically cite the chosen reference on to a sentence, though my devices are currently not compatible with the software. I’ve seen another citation in which a person assigns a number to a reference and the number will be included in the text, although I don’t think it is APA standard so I most likely won’t be utilizing it. For referencing material in my research I did not trust myself with following the rules to a tee so I utilized an online citation machine which allowed me to put more effort elsewhere.

While drafting and revising the commentators were often encouraging and helpful for distinguishing between good and bad content in my papers and the reflection afterwards were more engaging and different which made the reflections easier and allowed me to answer the questions more appropriately. The reflections are often tied to the course objectives, but I was instructed to also be more open to including other activities that may have contributed or taken away from my writing, such as during the power of observations essay I included my awareness of how my desk made it hard for me to focus and so I proposed a solution to help me on the next assignment. For my rhetorical analysis paper I took a picture of my notes on the supplementary material which helped me structure my paper.

Caption: Notes I took while comparing supplemental instructions to my research analysis

Because of the encouragement and unique ways that I was encouraged to write I feel more confident to write in a larger variety of genres as compared to before this class I was more familiar with the standardized paper that required an introduction, body, and conclusion. My gripes with structure  have to do with my difficulties with creating a structure for the content I’m writing since I would type sentences that were not related, then try to string them together afterwards. I would often be criticized on writing terribly and would become frustrated with creating the introduction and conclusion. Hopefully with more exposure to writing introductions and conclusions I will be able to create good ones, but another problem with writing introductions is that different genres and content in those genres are introduced differently.

Another factor that I think contributes to my writing is the environment around me, which I mean objects, light, temperature, and people. I live at home while attending CCNY and they are very accommodating to me, they also make many distractions and can often be inflexible to what I need. My family make a lot of noise and they have a habit of barging into rooms uninvited, which is a habit I also have, but it can be quite disruptive when I’m doing work. The most debilitating habit of mine is my compulsion to watch Youtube videos, which consumes hours of my time out of my day and takes my faculties away from my work. I think the pressure from having work also pushes me towards watching videos as I have an instinct to calm myself by watching videos that distract me from my own reality. I think that I would be more encouraged to do my work if I had a friend that is going through a similar situation as me with the same motivation and responsibility, but I feel that in the future I will not find  many people on a similar path. I can try to condition myself to be more studious during less stressful times or hopefully I will be able to comfortably spend more time in studious environments where I can concentrate. 

This semester is very uncommon and my current activities now most likely would not reflect how I would do in my current classes with in-class sessions. In a previous journal entry I talked about how I was conditioned to learn in the physical class and how working from home was bad in that sense, however being at home does bring advantages such as sleep, resources, and nearly constant access to the internet. My current experience makes me believe that there are improvements to the way CCNY and other CUNYs teach subjects and functions well such that students can be comfortable and learn well concurrently, however there are also other social factors that could improve everybody’s experience such as more funding to CUNYs.

Considering Respice, looking at my past experiences with English classes I was less interested in writing and it was stressful for me. In Adspice or looking to this semester’s English class, I enjoyed writing about the pandemic and having the assignments be more free form, it could be that because of the circumstances the assignments had become different and more fun for me at least. In Prospice or in the future, I hope that i can take my experiences and mistakes that I made in this English class to use in my future writing pieces.