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Xavier Sheng

Julia Crisler

Writing 2

16 March 2021

Metacognitive Reflection

Sitting in front of my computer, when I started typing the reflection, I realized that the

course of writing 2 has reached the end. During the semester long course, I gained writing

skills and faced numerous difficulties, and finally achieved the two WPs and the final

portfolio. Looking back the journey I have passed together with all classmates and TA, I

found out that the writing course has offered us some many useful writing techniques for the

university writing and further life. The lesson I learned from writing 2 course could be

concluded as Alert, Improvement and Regret.

Alert

One of the most important lesson I learned is to be albert at all time to avoid plagiarism. I

cultivate the habit to keep record of all of the sources visited through the course time. When I

worked on the first free write project, I wrote about my writing habit of writing the whole

project at one time. I had difficulty understanding the comment from my TA Julia, “we'll be

writing papers in this course, and in other classes in school, that are too long and complex to

be finished in one day.” I was able to finish the course paper in one day because they are not

as long as the writing project in writing 2. When I got in touch with the actual university level

writing, I found out that even researching for the information could cost one entire day.
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During the process of writing WP2, I spent one day simply to determine the two discipline I

want to wrote about because I need to find both the suitable topic and the relevant disciplines.

I felt very stressful as I spent the whole day without any writing. I inevitably made mistake

during the process of citation, forgetting to cite one definition quoted, under the stressful

circumstance. Our TA reminds me at the right time so I force myself to cultivate the habit of

keeping every website I had visited while researching to avoid plagiarism.

The knowledge of citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism in academic writing. The

knowledge about citation is a significant part of my writing 2 learning. The citation lecture

overturns my realization towards citation. I found out there was more than one type of

citation, MLA, Chicago and even more. When I was reading the requirement for the WP2, I

did not realize the citation style could be different. During the peer review, the classmate

pointed out that I should follow the Chicago citation style, which is a completely new concept

for me. I spent more than half a day to find explanation on the Purdue citation source and find

sample paper to see where my citation could be improved. Having good researching habits,

adequate citation knowledge, and also the alert to avoid plagiarism at all time would help one

writer to stay from the risk of academic dishonesty.

Improvement

The second lesson I learned is improvement. Writing 2 not only improve my writing skills,

but also the skills of research and communication. The most useful improvement for my

writing technique is how to write a good introduction and conclusion. I always neglect the

importance of a delicately written introduction before having the lecture and peer review. In
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the original submitted WP1, my introduction is only two sentences. The lecture of writing

good introduction makes me know I could use quote or story as a hook to attract the reader,

and also need to write thesis sentence which gives the central idea of the whole essay. In

addition, when I did the peer review and saw how nicely other classmate organize their

introduction, I realized that a good introduction does have great effect on the reader. It could

not only give reader interest to continue reading, but also give a clear road map of what the

essay is about. Thus, when writing the final portfolio, I paid great attention on both the

introduction and conclusion. In the revision of introduction of WP1, I almost rewrite the

entire introduction, adding quote as hook, adding introduction of the two genres and revising

sentence to make it more like an academic essay; for the conclusion, I added thesis statement

to stress the main point and make to fit more to the central idea of the essay. I also had great

effort to the introduction and conclusion of the WP2 by strengthening the thesis statement.

Moreover, I learned to properly use of punctuation. The reading article makes me realize

how one little punctuation could change the meaning of a sentence. Our TA Julia also stressed

the importance of using punctuation correctly by pointing out several places of misuse in the

comment. The comment that gave me deep impression is to place the footnotes after the

comment rather than within the sentence itself. This change seems to have tiny influence to

the comprehension of the essay, but using it correctly could make the essay fit the genre

convention of an academic essay more. The lecture of punctuation not only helps me learn to

write in proper format, but also tells me the idea that life is determined by details. Paying

attention to detail could cause significant change in entire life. The correct usage of

punctuation on resume could give positive impression to the interviewer and help succeed in
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application.

I also got improvement to use quote in favorable way. I really like to quote one entire

sentence in previous writing, even when working on WP2. After reading the essay of Kyle D.

Stedman “Annoying Ways People Use Sources”, I learned not to quote the sentence as a

whole. Thus, I changed the quote in WP2 by incorporating into my own sentence which

makes the reader easier to accept the information.

In addition, I got improvement in realization towards different genres and disciplines. I

learned that different genres had different conventions. The rules and formats that fit the

academic essay writing may not fit other genres, such as Instagram post. I gained knowledge

rated to the genre conventions of the newspaper website article and Instagram post through

the process of writing WP1.

Regret

Although I got great improvement in many aspects of writing skills, there are still some

regrets in the class. There are few concepts that I have difficulties comprehend, including the

organization of the structure and the shape of the sentence.

I watched the lectures regarding how to organize the structure, but when editing the

WP1, I still got confused. Structure is not like simple techniques, such as the punctuation,

following rules and have formats to follow. Structure needs times to practice and accumulate

experience. Though I still got bad structure in WP1, I believe the WP2 has better structure.

The structure is one of the hardest points for me to learn in writing. I think through reading

more sample article and doing more practice, my structure skill would improve gradually in
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the future.

In addition, another concept that is hard to understand is the shape of the sentence. I read

the reading of “UNDERSTANDING THE SHAPE OF SENTENCES” by Williams, Joseph

M., and Joseph Bizup. The techniques of revising the sentence seems really hard to achieve

for me. I think the technique could help make the sentence more fluent and in better shape,

but I got really confused for understanding how to reach to the effect. I would spend more

time reading the essay and practice on my further essay to reach to the better shape.

In conclusion, the course of writing 2 provided great help in my writing journal and my

entire life. Not only did it bring improvement in my writing skills, but also provides alerts to

avoid plagiarism and regret that encourage me to read and practice further. I’m really

thankful for all of the help got from our TA and all of the suggestion from classmates. Hope

you all have a better life and better academic study and work!
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Work Cited

Stedman, Kyle D. “Annoying Ways People Use Sources.” Writing Spaces: Readings on

Writing, Volume 2. 2011. http://writingspaces.org/essays. 242-256.

Williams, Joseph M., and Joseph Bizup. Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace. Boston:

Pearson, 2015. Print.

Sheng, Xavier. “The difference between online News sources.” 12 March, 2021.

Sheng, Xavier. “ASSIGNING VALUE VERSUS REASONING----COMPARING

ECONOMICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY ESSAY.” February 25, 2021.