Sarich 1

Emma Sarich

Allison Bocchino

Writing 2

10 June 2024

Metacognitive Reflection

During my time in Writing 2 as a whole, my perspective on the entire genre of writing

has changed indefinitely. From the very first lesson on Day 1, I was completely struck with the

definition of a genre. You’re trying to tell me a water bottle is a genre? Flipped my world upside

down in the writing world. From then on, my approach to the entire writing process had differed

to my past self constructing a piece. The way in which I went about structuring a paper all started

with how I would research a topic. Finding a library with seemingly an endless amount of

possibilities on numerous topics to research seemed like a major task when beginning a project.

Having proper navigation of the library research system helped to face some initial fears and

grunts of even starting to think about a writing assignment. Moreover, the methods in attacking a

writing project in terms of outlines and utilizing revision comments as best as possible came

especially in handy during fixing my WP’s. I never realized how helpful it was to have other

people read and comment on my work because I was too embarrassed to let others view it. I felt

that using those revision comments to advance my writing skills, structure and more gave me a

new perspective on what to make with trying to take my writing to the next level. Finding the

significant facets of a rough draft to a revised version of the intended assignment is something

this Writing 2 course aided in my entire writing process.

Specifically, in the topics discussed throughout the course of the class, learning about

genres and different writing processes were all new things for me to learn. In prior English
 Sarich 2

classes, I was already introduced to topics like rhetoric, however, this class helped me to learn

about it in a varying light. It wasn’t just the typical ethos, pathos, and logos identification and

analyzation in a piece of text and applying it to your own writing. It was more of an in-depth

analysis of rhetoric and seeing many different ways to actually improve a form of writing. It

really worked for me in the sense that I elevated my understanding of what my writing needed,

always feeling like a core part was missing something necessary. Comprehending the content of

the material being taught seems more beneficial for me in incorporating it into my writing than

simply making attempts over and over and seeing what sticks.

My personal writing style has not really changed over the stretch of my writing career. I

try to talk in my writing as I do in real life, a mix of professionalism and my own personal lingo

and flow coming through. I try not to make my style too unprofessional because the

circumstances and context typically deem a more sophisticated form of writing. However, it feels

weird to type out papers in a strictly professional manner because it does not feel so natural to

me. So, to compromise, I incorporate a little bit of my own organic personality into my texts.

This class has changed so much that there truly are moments where I need to focus on a more

professional voice and sometimes a loud personality shining through my writing is not necessary

and doesn’t add to the prompt of the paper, like in WP1. I had more freedom during WP2’s

process because I had the opportunity to use a different genre’s personality. After perusing

through examples of the genre I chose to translate an academic article into, I adopted the

personality expressed from the authors and some of my own individuality surfaced. This method

allowed me to introduce my own writing style when I felt my truest style was not absolutely

appropriate to be expressed.
 Sarich 3

In my WP’s I mainly focused on the first writing project. I struggled with maneuvering

around the topic of the given assignment, even though the prompt was seemingly

straightforward. When polishing the draft, I managed to detail the overall structure, the tone, the

organization, and the language style in order to clean up the parts that were bugging me on this

being a perfect paper. An area in which I can work on is still allowing myself to further open my

ego up to having an array of people read and give comments on my work. Throughout the

quarter, I felt very weird having my classmates critique my writing, but I understand now that it’s

all for the better and definitely necessary to make my work as perfect as possible.

The work in this portfolio reflects many of the things I’ve learned in this quarter’s course.

These topics include how to calmly organize a paper, beginning with the library screening

process. This system allowed me to neatly and accurately find articles that suited my needs and

personal preferences in order to discover papers that interested me enough to expand on them in

my own text. Although this step may not be directly expressed in my paper, it certainly was

expressed in my mental sanity, which is definitely visible in seeing how calm I am writing all

these pieces. Furthermore, this class has taught me how to incorporate feedback from my peers

and professors into actually helpful advice in order to improve my writing. This may not be the

most obviously shown to the audience reading my WPs, but to me, I definitely have the I finally

was introduced to footnotes and how to properly implement them during both WPs. This was

where my writing style felt a little elevated where it looked cleaner. In addition to making the

paper look cleaner and more professional, I also showed how I learned about a new citation style

and illustrated it in my papers. In these papers, I also learned how to tackle a new form of

writing, specifically typing out papers with word counts into the thousands. Along with a large

word count that I was not used to, I had to also manage a paper dealing with 2 research academic
 Sarich 4

articles. However, simply the completion of the papers showed that I tried and put effort into my

work. As a writer, I think that I really developed in areas dealing with revisions. Like I

mentioned previously, I used to not share my work with others, depriving myself of the

opportunity to make my writing better. But after this whole process, I feel like I’ve opened

myself and my texts up to constructive criticism. Some things I really liked with my portfolio is

how much time I spent with this whole project. I never spent much time with prior assignments

revising my work this much, but it was an experience that I had never explored before. Every

time I looked over my work, I kept finding something new to fix.

Some areas that I’ve learned about in Writing 2 that I can permanently adopt and advance

to other forms of the writing process reside primarily in the “before” methods. Giving myself the

motivation to actually research and pick out complicated and professional pieces of text for a

writing assignment that deals with the prompt at hand. That was one of the worst parts of starting

a paper for me, but this class has shown me how to tackle an assignment in a more organized

manner, rather than getting overwhelmed and unmotivated in the rest of the writing process. I

can definitely adopt and apply this calmer approach to the thinking process in future projects.

Utilizing the way that I managed to understand the true context behind certain topics like rhetoric

and exemplifying them in my WPs really helped to make my papers sound more advanced than it

might have originally turned out to be. This class overall has helped me to delve deeper into not

only learning about the context of certain articles, but more specifically, the style of writing

involved in these works. Instead of reading an overwhelming academic article talking about the

true context, I learned to look past that and analyze the author’s writing style. This not only

helped see a whole new perspective of writing an article, but also seeing how I found the way to

use the information given in the genre, discipline, and writing style and can identify more details
 Sarich 5

in the author’s purpose in implementing certain parts in their work. I understand a greater part in

discipline fields and why certain authors write certain things for their academic field. The

strongest feature in my writing I feel is utilizing my comment revisions to their fullest potential.

Throughout the duration of this quarter, I made it a priority to use comment revisions from my

peers and my professors whenever appropriate. Seeing how beneficial another person’s

perspective on your own work can be a very eye opening experience to improve.

Some concepts that were difficult for me to understand were the initial prompts when

presented for the WPs. When I first heard that I have to translate an academic article into a

non-academic genre, I had absolutely no idea how I was going to approach this assignment. It

wasn’t until mid-writing the assignment that I was finally starting to understand what was

happening and where I really needed to focus my paper. Sometimes it was a little complicated to

take the concepts learned in classes and discussions and implicate them into my papers. I felt a

little fumbled initially when learning concepts and then applying them to my work, but after

having class discussions with classmates and dissecting the prompt at hand, I began to

comprehend the assignment topic. Some ways in which I feel are my favorite strategies are

during the writing process, blurbing out all the ideas in my head onto a Google Document and

then organizing my thoughts were a great way to fix up my work in the future. It helped

especially when I felt stuck and wanted to move on to a topic I knew much more about at the

moment and I could adjust writing topics accordingly later on down the line.