Joshua Wooi
English 250
Professor Meredith Smith-Lane
19 February, 2019
A3 Reflection
I chose to write on “The Way We Live Now: I Tweet, Therefore I Am” by Peggy Orenstein based on initial impression. I was drawn in from the title of the article alone, and made the decision to stick with it after carefully studying its contents. I am ultimately happy about my decision, however I would’ve appreciated more material to work with from Orenstein. I chose to focus on Pathos, Ethos, and Logos as my persuasive strategies, because it seemed like the most simple and effective decision at the time. However, my paper might have benefited from my expansion towards more creative approaches in hindsight, as was the requirement of the assignment to be considered an “excellent” piece. My thesis statement did not change, nor did I feel that it needed to. I believe my initial thesis sufficiently fulfilled the requirement of the assignment which was why I kept it in the final draft. In the writing process, I used Assignment 2, a summary of the article, as a reference to keep track of what I wanted to write about. I organized the paper by following what came up first in the text, and I believe it created a good flow to the piece consequently. In revising my first draft, I noticed that the thing that changed the most were the word choices, and sentence structures. In other words, the overall polish of the paper. Conversely, the factor that remained constant throughout the whole process were the core ideas and the main topics.
Upon reflection, it is clear that my approach towards writing this paper may have been what I would describe as ‘narrow-minded’. I refused the opportunity to explore beyond a tried-and-true formula and I do believe the quality of the final draft suffered. I don’t believe anything is objectively wrong with my final draft, however the room for improvement is clear. Therein lies a lesson that I will humbly take into my future work, as I continue to grow and improve as a writer.