Final Reflection

1. Choose a song or musical composition that communicates your experience with

writing and UWRT 1102. Consider including a video of the song. Explain your
choice.
At first I couldnt think of a song that I could use, but I did some research that was successful. I
found a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd titled All I Can Do Is Write About It. While this is an older
song, and not the catchiest song by todays standards, it conveys my experience of writing in this
course. Sometimes when struggling to find what to write I would have to evaluate how I was
thinking about an assignment, and often times I needed to just write instead of getting slowed
down by the little things.
2. If you were to teach this class, what ideas would you emphasize?
During the class I enjoyed the style of teaching Mrs. Thomas has. I dont believe I would change
anything, but there may some that could be emphasized more. One of those is that the thesis
paper is really not a very formal paper. While it requires a serious level of explanation and
research, the overall tone could be like a narrative and simply a presentation of the research. I
expected initially that the paper would be more formal, maybe somewhat like a scientific paper
in that its simply information. I enjoyed being able to write on a more personal level and I think
the examples of other thesis papers in the course pack were very useful for understanding what
the final thesis would look like.

3. Explain how your understanding of rhetorical knowledge has changed over the
course of the semester using at least three examples from your writing. Ex. Did you
shift an assignment to better fit a particular genre like a proposal?
1. One way, probably the first, that I bettered my understanding of rhetorical
knowledge was through the drafting process of the inquiry proposal. Initial I
wrote in a more polarizing style that would have made my readers less receptive
to my opinion, especially if they already opposed my ideas.
2. Another way I increased understanding of rhetorical knowledge is by
incorporating the articles and blog entries that I used. When writing with
information from Voices for Vaccines I had to change my style to better convey
the emotional aspects of the authors writing, which was a bit different from
writing in the annotated bibliographies.
3. One major way I displayed my use of rhetorical knowledge is from my early
thesis drafts, proposals, and bibliographies, to my final thesis draft. Until writing
for my final draft, I wrote in a way that would be difficult to convince anyone of
anything. I used more facts and science, while having less personal stories and
emotional connections. I would say that the incorporation of the article posts of
parents discussing their vaccine decision was a major turning point in the
production of my thesis.

4. Explain how your critical reading has improved during the semester. Ex. In what
ways did you read across texts for connections and patterns in your inquiry?

My use of critical reading has increased by learning how to and practicing the synthesis of my
own writings based on ideas that others proposed. I had to incorporate the facts that others used
in their works, but also understand their opinion and evaluate my position on such opinions. The
most difficult piece for critical reading was a scholarly article. While the articles use pretty
simple patterns they tend to be difficult to connect different parts because of the way they are
written more formally, and in the case of my inquiry topic, scientific.
5. Discuss your composing processes. Ex. Did you conduct additional research while
revising or after consulting a colleague? Provide at least three examples to support
your assertion.
1. After receiving feedback from others, I made some changes to the grammar and
sentence structure of a few parts of my thesis. One example of something I
changed after feedback is: Of course there are valid reasons why one should not
get the flu vaccine, such as having an allergy that would cause a harmful reaction.
I believe some people are afraid of the shot due to being misinformed. Which
was altered from originally having a comma as one long sentence cause a
harmful reaction, I believe some people
2. I have no doubt that vaccines are safe and effective, and responsible for
eliminating many devastating diseases like polio
Before revising the above sentence, the phrase like polio was not there. Adding
this example is powerful because it gives my words credibility and may have an
emotional impact on some people.
3. Overall through my research, I didnt introduce new research once my annotated
bibliographies were completed. I received lots of feedback through in-class

reviewing and small-group conferences, but the corrections and additions I made
were done using my existing research.
6. Provide at least three examples of your knowledge of conventions Ex. sentence level
changes, MLA citations.
1. A plausibility assessment was done to test the claims from the 1998 case study,
and it was concluded that no support for an association on a population level
between MMR immunization and autism (Stratton 6).
The above sample is an excerpt from my final thesis that displays the use of a direct quote and
the MLA style, parenthetical citation.
2. Each mentioned story of someone's personal experience with vaccines and autism
contains fear as a reason to not vaccinate their children, but there is no reason to
fear, and using autistic children to scare people away from vaccines is unfair.
This example shows my sentence formation. In this example from the final draft of my thesis, I
was able to present a they say while referring to previous sentences, then having my own
opinion or a I say.
3. Stratton, Kathleen R. Immunization Safety Review: Measles-mumps-rubella
Vaccine and Autism. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press, 2001. Internet
resource.
The above example shows the appropriate use of a MLA citation of a scholarly article that was
included in my annotated bibliographies.

7. Critical Reflection:
A) Explain the importance of reflection in learning processes.

Reflection is useful because you are able to evaluate your own work once you have written it and
assess how well you did or where you need to improve. Many times in this course I would write
a reflection some time after I had written the paper, which is useful because many times before I
would not find myself going over and reviewing my work in such a useful way.
B) Explain what you think is important in providing commentary on others work and
receiving commentary on your own.
When giving others commentary, it is important to understand their writing style and the goals of
the piece you are reviewing, so that if something seems to be abstract you can point it out to
them. When receiving commentary on my own work, I found it most useful to be receptive to
others recommendations, as most of the time they were able to see something that I couldnt as
the writer.
C) Provide at least three examples of your nuanced use of commentary in your writing
projects.
1. I also learned about how vaccines work, which is by introducing your immune
system to a particular virus, so that your body produces antibodies without having
the actual symptoms of a disease. This sentence was added to the introduction of
my thesis after it was suggested that I explain how vaccines work for readers that
may not know.
2. In 2001, Stratton wrote in a journal published by the National Academy Press
titled Immunization Safety Review, primarily as a response to the suggestions that
the MMR vaccine could be a cause for autism, as some studies have argued with
some data. The above sentence was altered by including the word journal so I
could be more specific about where the information was coming from, after
someone questioned me about it.

3. vaccinated according to their pediatricians recommendations. This sentence

was the final version. Originally I wrote pediatricians which is a minor
grammatical error that was corrected due to peer review and commentary
received.