To: Mr. Greaver
From: Evans Brown
Subject: Writer’s Reflection and Midterm Memo
Date: 14 July 2020
Midterm Memo
Introduction
Self-reflection involves a careful deliberation of one’s beliefs and behavior. Additionally, self-reflection may entail careful deliberation of a change that one has experienced, a learning event, or an experience. Students need to exercise self-reflection to identify their achievements and failures while in college. Furthermore, they need to reflect on various aspects of lives such as interactions, goals, and abilities. One of the benefits of self-reflection is strengthening emotional intelligence through building its two fundamental components; self-regulation and self-awareness. Additionally, self-reflection enables people to understand their core-values and strengthen their integrity, thus are likely to make better decisions. Lastly, self-reflection strengthens one’s confidence since an individual learns about his/her strengths and how to improve them.
Reflection on myself, as a writer
Rhetoric
Through Meredith’s reflection and other readings in this course, I learned about the importance of rhetoric in convincing the audience. For example, I understood that the use of logos, which involves presenting logical arguments to the audience builds their trust in the information I am conveying. Moreover, I learned to use pathos, to appeal to the audience emotionally, prompting them to make a particular decision or react in a certain way.
Research and writing process
My research and writing process has relatively improved. For example, I have learned the need to follow the stages of the writing process including prewriting, drafting, and revising. In the past, I was approaching writing head-on and never prepared my work through the prewriting or drafting stage. Such habits made my work unpresentable and I mostly garnered poor marks. However, through following the writing process stages, I can first gather the information I need, organize ideas, write a draft, make necessary adjustments, and then write a final refined copy. However, I have noted that I have simple mistakes such as spelling and punctuations which I can remove through revising and editing my works thoroughly.
Critical thinking
I have noted that critical thinking is necessary for every student. For instance, when solving academic problems particularly when doing exams, some questions are difficult to handle, even if I have encountered them earlier. In such a situation, I realized that using critical thinking skills enables me to analyze and evaluate a problem to come up with a correct judgment or answer. Therefore, I now employ critical thinking in various fields and my performance has significantly improved.
Writing conventions
I noted that writing conventions are an essential part of the writing process since they make a piece of work understandable and clear. Additionally, I noted that the proper use of writing conventions enables the audience to read a piece of work without stopping to contemplate the information they are trying to convey. I also noted that through this course I learned how to correctly use writing conventions such as grammar and capitalization. Today, I have significantly mastered the use of writing conventions and this has led to an improvement in my works.
Digital environments
In the course, I learned that the digital environment involves integrated communications environments, where digital, electronic, and wireless devices are used as tools of communication and interactions. The devices also manage the activities and content within themselves. In the course, I realized that digital learning has become common and is slowly replacing physical learning. For instance, I noted that steps involved in writing such as reviewing, editing, and revising can now be performed in digital environments. I also realized that writing in the digital environment is more convenient due to the presence of mechanisms that rectify errors such as spelling mistakes. In the past few months, I have learned how to write in the digital environment due to the suspension of classes.
Conclusion
I believe that I have done in learning the use of rhetoric and applying them in my writings. Moreover, I think that I have successfully engaged in writing in the digital environment, and cope with its challenges. However, I feel that I need to improve my way of researching the information to be used in my writings. Lastly, I need to improve the way I use writing conventions since my papers often have problems such as grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.