Reflection on Project 1

In this post I will be discussing the complications and problems I ran into while drafting my QRG. I will also be discussing important things about writing that I learned while writing my QRG.  Finally I will conclude this post by discussing what I found helpful, similar and useful from my previous writing experiences.

Workingham Libraries, "Creative Writing Editing Library Paper Write Pen", Uploaded 2 years ago via pixabay.com

• What challenges did you face during the Quick Reference Guide project and how did you deal with them?

While writing the QRG I found that I struggled with identifying the audience I was writing to. In doing so I tended to use bigger words as if I was writing an essay. One of the ways I over came this was to finally reduce my words to simpler words and read my QRG off to my brother who had no idea what the controversy was about. In addition to this, after reading through the clarity part 2 blog post and the exact words section, I found several instances where I should have used simpler words to convey the same meaning. 

• What successes did you experience on the project and how did they happen?

One of my major successes that I experience was when I finally figured out how I was supposed to write both the QRG and the blog posts for it. I realized that the blog posts were essentially the same thing as the QRG only shorter, so the I began to write my QRG as I would a blog post and made the entire process go much faster.  Another of my successes was when I finally figured out how to identify how I was supposed to identify and speak to my audience. This happened after I read my QRG to my brother and then while reading it realized that I need to address him not someone who know everything about the topic.

• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most effective for your project? Why?

For this project I found two thing to be most effective.

1. Write to the audience not an expert on the topic: I found this effective because it helped shorten and allow me to go in depth with my QRG more than I would have.
2. Use a lot of white space and pictures: I found this to be effective because it made it much easier to read my QRG and made it look a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find were not effective for your project? Why?

For this project I found that there were also two things that I found to be least effective:

1. Thesis statement: I found the thesis statement to be the least effective writing practice before this because it seemed that this QRG was more directed towards information and not analysis. While there was some analysis that had to be done, for the most part there was no central argument to the QRG.
2. Essay format: The format of having an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion all seemed like they were not as effective as they would be in an essay. For the most part the structure still applied where the was an intro, body with questions and then a so what, but the style for each part was vastly different.

• How was the writing process for this project similar to other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

One of the ways this project seemed to be similar to my high school writing was both the general structure of having an intro, body and conclusion. Another was the analysis of the sources and the evaluation of the reliability, credibility and so on for each of the sources. The biggest thing that was the same was finding some underlying "theme" of the argument and dissecting the controversy and breaking it down into the main anxieties and problems of the controversy. 

• How was the writing process for this project different from other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

In my high school we tended to write analysis heavy essays. This project was vastly different from those essays because it was less focused on analysis and more on information. In addition to this we only wrote for one specific audience. This project was a lot harder for me because I had to actually identify who the was and had to write for them.

• Would any of the skills you practiced for this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?

The most important skills I learned from this project is the identification of the audience. I think that this will be the most important skill I learned because if I know who the audience is then it will be a lot easier to communicate effectively to said audience.