Critical Reflective Essay
Many people have been writers their entire life, but many writers never excel to a higher level. This is in part because many never take time to reflect on their writing. This reflective essay will focus on previous academic writing as well as goals in future writing endeavors in personal and professional writing.
In Writing and Rhetoric I, I focus much more on formatting, audience, and genre of my writing than in previous courses. I found it rather challenging to follow such as specific format, especially because many of the assignments varied greatly in format and did not align with my personal style of writing. Moving forward I would like to strengthen my writing formats to which I am accustom as opposed to broadening my horizons and learning formats that I may not use. I would like to learn how to identify trends in a specific genre or discipline of writing as opposed to learning individual formats I may not use.
It is important to me that I learn how to better communicate with others. In my personal writing I want to better express thoughts, concerns, and demands especially in a leadership position. This is in a large part because I plan on commissioning as a Marine Corps Officer and effective precise communication is critical to safety and success. With in Mechanical Engineering, I would like to better communicate lab and testing results as well as their significance. In any engineering reporting success to the scientific community is extremely important and beneficial. Last semester I found a lot of my scientific writing to lack importance, in part because an effective argument could not be made due to my inability to argue a scientific thesis. All the components to make a compelling report were there, however using my findings as well as other research I found I was unable to make what I considered an acceptable report. Similarly other Mechanical engineering students have said their success going through any engineering program at VMI has been attributed in no small part to effective communication. For this reason I want to more effectively covey both my ideas and scientific findings in a clear and palatable way, not only to succeed academically but after graduation as well.
When writing for peers, faculty, and others within my field or major I want to learn to write in ways other disciplines write. For instance, writing a history paper is different from a lab report and therefore need to be conveyed in different ways. Clearly writing about different concepts requires different language but learning how each discipline writes and communicates is not realistic. What I want to accomplish is learn how to identify how disciplines write and copy the formats and mannerisms they use to communicate. I want to learn to analyze a genre of writing outside English or science and understand how to write like any given discipline I may encounter or work with.
In civil discourse, I want to better formulate arguments in a non-confrontational way. Many issues society faces could be solved with simple discourse; however few know how to discuss a serious issue without being confrontational. I would like to learn how to point out flaws in certain legislation, lifestyles, or other critical societal issues without being overtly argumentative or confrontational without having to alter my original stance or assertion. I would also like to learn how to critique without having my writing seem judgmental or confrontational. I would also like to learn to argue smaller issues as well. I would like to know how to show the importance of an issue without making it seem like a bigger issue than it really is. If an issue is worth addressing it should not need to be blown out of proportion to argue for or against it, but at this stage in my writing progression I do not know how to address any other type of issue other than highest caliber of topic.
One of these smaller issues that I would like to address is government subsidized corn. A seemingly small issue, but its effects are far reaching and should be discussed with an open mind and a broad view. It touches on many aspects of our society from the overuse of corn products leading to obesity to the growth and sustainability or rural farming communities. At this point in my research into corn subsidies I am unsure what my stance would be because it is so complex far reaching while remaining a topic outside of most large public debates. For that reason I would like to learn how to research and formulate an argument on it.