When I first entered this class, Writing 39C: Argument and Research, I was asked to assess myself, as a writer. When I wrote this piece, I decided to center my assessment to Writing 39B: Critical Reading and Rhetoric, which I had taken about a half a year ago. I decided to mainly reflect upon my writing experience in that course; specifically, my drafting and revision process, my organization, and my experience with peer revision. The assessment elaborates upon these writing processes in moderate detail below and ultimately represents a documentation of my status as a writer, fresh into the class. To see how much I've grown, see the Reflective Introduction.

Writing and communication are inarguably important skills to possess as a student, professional, or even as an individual. However, the path to develop these skills is neither necessarily straightforward nor painless. Personally, my own path has been rather tumultuous, filled with countless hours of planning, drafting, and revising. The Writing 39 series at UC Irvine has especially challenged me in both further developing my writing and my outlook on writing itself, despite me only having completed Writing 39B.

Through assigning papers with longer length requirements than I was previously accustomed to, Writing 39B galvanized me to improve my planning and organizational skills. Previously in high school, I had only encountered papers with 2-3 page requirements. Contrastingly, papers assigned in 39B were often 5 pages minimum; moreover, the content in college also evolved—it grew in complexity and length while also expanding into different mediums, such as film or film reviews. In response, I took deliberate care in planning my papers. I would try to arrange paragraphs in a logical flow of somewhat related ideas, attempting to expand the sophistication of the argument and simultaneous try to narrow the focus. Nevertheless, I did have to adapt and make changes based on the prompt. For example, in one paper focused on a film, I had arranged the paper to follow a sort of introduction into rhetorical questioning, followed up by a one-by-one examination and analysis of several important scenes. I guess in retrospect I can say that 39B illustrated to me how a case-by-case planning/organizing of papers allows one to strengthen his paper.

The process of revision is just as important, if not more, than planning and drafting a paper; consequently, Writing 39B spared no expense to reinforce this concept. The course emphasized an especially important discourse community—your classmates. As such, peer revisions received heavy emphasis. However, in my experience, peer revisions were hit or miss, for a lack of a better phrase. Rarely did one receive truly insightful advice that revolutionized his entire paper; more often than not, peer revisions would uncover more minor mistakes, including grammar and spelling. I found a greater solace in personal revisions as one is more “intertwined” with his paper, his thoughts, and his arguments. In my case, I value structural revisions slightly more than conceptual ones. I reserve conceptual revisions till later in the revision process; only until I have exhausted structural revisions do I revise conceptually. I believe that there should be a combination of words in the right order to convey a specific thought, most of the time. Nonetheless, I will not hesitate to conceptually revise my argument if it or parts of it are not coherent. I mainly alter broad aspects of the argument though, rather than the entire thing. As for structural revisions, I will use whatever I deem fit to enhance the argument: reorganizing paragraphs, rewriting sentences, or changing the diction.

Writing 39B introduced me to planning and revising in greater depth than in high school; it allowed me to witness how planning provides a streamlined paper, in which one’s ideas flow smoothly and coherently, and how revising reinforces the argument. However, 39B focused on rhetoric; one had to understand the rhetor, his message, and his purpose. This is but one aspect of communication. Writing 39C will enlighten me in another aspect, one of research. As I reach the end of the Writing 39 series, I hope to understand yet another aspect of communication and improve upon my writing.