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Denisse Viera
W39C
Annie Yaniga
6/10/16
My Journey through W39C
Ever since I learned how to write, I rarely prided myself on my writing skills. Of course
over the years in school, I have expanded my word choice, learned how to write in different
essay structure, and I’ve definitely evolved as a researcher. However, W37 and W39C have
definitely taught me how to create eloquent arguments and how to make them stronger with
credible sources. There were three writing techniques in particular that I had to develop and
strengthen while writing the Historical Conversation Project and the Advocacy Project: finding
credible and relevant sources on my topic, restructuring arguments/sentences, and making use of
the feedback I received on my drafts. Additionally, I had to learn how to strengthen arguments
through the use of rhetorical devices such as pathos, and include counterarguments to add
credibility. Learning these skills have helped me become a more confident writer and have
helped me become an expert on police brutality as well as several topics with the different essays
I have written during my first two years at UC Irvine.
One of the most important things I’ve learned in W37 and especially in W39C is how to
conduct research from different outlets, whether it be scholarly articles or mainstream newspaper
articles. Because I am a PSB major, I have mainly been exposed to scholarly article databases; I
have been most comfortable searching for experimental research articles. I did struggle a bit as I
had to get accustomed to non-experimental articles and making use of popular newspaper
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sources. What I found particularly helpful when I was doing my research was while I was
reading an article, I paid attention to the sources the article cited either in text or in the reference
list and I researched those articles that seems relevant to my topic, almost like piggybacking off
other articles. This tactic helped me strengthen my claims as I used multiple sources to touch on
a single subject. It also led me to sources I would have otherwise never discovered. For example,
I was able to find the artifact from the past (which I will talk about more in the next paragraph)
while I was reading one scholarly article. Even after I found the name of the new source in the
reference list, it took me some time to find the new source online. It was a newspaper article
from a 1901 newspaper that has been republished into a book of newspaper articles from that era.
Had I not been paying attention to the references this initial article was using, I would have never
searched for this 1901 newspaper article.
This is the front cover of the newspaper article that was used as an
artifact from the past in both the HCP and the AP. (These essays
can be found in the “HCP” and “AP” section of the ePortfolio and
the annotation can be found in the “Annotated Bibliography”
section, but it will also be provided in the next paragraph).
Moreover, I had to get use to researching and using different kind
of sources while not wasting so much time.
Throughout my prewriting exercises, I was forced to learn how
time consuming it is to conduct research and yet how essential it is
to most papers seeing that most often, it is the foundation to most arguments. Nevertheless, I
figured this out the hard way as I waited last minute to conduct my initial research for both the
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HCP and the AP. I was particularly stressed out when I was doing the “HCP First Steps”
assignment in which we had to find and annotate 6-8 sources and the write a “Statement of
Prospective Claims.” I know that I have only myself to blame for that because I did not read the
assignment instructions before starting the research. I had not searched for an artifact from the
past and one from the present to show why the social issue, police brutality, has sustained
throughout American history. I also did not know that I had to annotate all 6-8 sources! It was a
good thing that I had learned how to annotate sources while taking W37 and thus, I did not have
to spend time learning how to do annotate. Annotating my initial sources was extremely helpful
because I was able to go back to my sources days after looking them up and remember why they
were significant to me and what specific points were especially useful. I believe that I did a great
job with my annotations not only because I followed instructions but because they were key to
remembering the most important sources I used which served as the foundation of my essays.
Here is the annotation for the artifact from the past, which I mention earlier, that I used in the
HCP and AP in which I explain the reason why it is important and useful for me: Moss, Frank.
"National Danger from Police Corruption." Railway Carmen's Journal [Kansas City] Nov. 1901,
VI ed., sec. 11. Print. : This article was written by Frank Moss, a former police commissioner of
New York City and published in 1901. This serves as my first significant piece of evidence from
the past. In this article, Moss explains all the corruption the police institution was involved in and
how easy it was for them to get away with it. He also explains that there was high levels of
police brutality and misconduct and even says that they were “practically above the law.” This
article is a perfect example of how police brutality is not a new phenomenon in the U.S. but
instead has repeated in history for more than 100 years.
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Another writing skill that I learned when developing the HCP and the AP was easing into
controversial arguments and arranging points in a manner that does not make my opponents
discredit my points. This skill is important because it enhances writers’ ethos and it allows for a
smooth read. For example, in the third paragraph of the second draft of the HCP (available in the
“HCP” section of ePortfolio), I made a very bold and controversial statement: “Therefore, it is
safe to say that the police department was developed on the basis of racism, at least in the South,
as white police officers controlled back people.”
Because this declarative sentence is so bold, it stunts the readers (especially the readers that
oppose my arguments) in a way that makes me (the writer) seem very one sided. In the HCP, I
am persuading the readers that police brutality is a pressing social issue, which should be a one
sided argument, but saying bold statements like that does not help me persuade my readers but
rather it pushes them away. Therefore, I was advised to ease into that sentence so that it can still
have an impact on the reader, but not discourage them from continuing to read my paper.
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This comes from the final draft of the HCP (available in the “HCP” section of ePortfolio) which
shows the revised sentence I used to communicated the same idea, but in a more subtle way:
“White police officers were employed to control Black populations which formed the population
of early police officers.”
During the writing process of the HCP, I overlooked some of the peer advice I was given
which impacted my final grade, and thus I assured myself that I would follow it when writing the
AP. After receiving my grade for the HCP, I realized how important it is to take peer reviews and
feedback seriously because it not only benefits me in terms of receiving a better grade, but it can
help strengthen the overall paper since different readers are telling me what I’m missing or what
should be removed. For example, my HCP lacked evidence to prove that racism, which has taken
form in racial structural inequalities, it the root cause of police brutality. I was aware that I was
lacking this research but I really did struggle to find sources that helped prove my point. During
a review conference and in review feedback, I was told that I needed evidence to prove that
racism is embedded in society to be able to show that it is the root cause of police brutality and to
be able to explain why it not only affects the victims but society at large. The reason why I found
it difficult to do this research is because I have personally internalized the racial inequalities that
are present in society and thus I did not know where exactly to look for it in research. I was
given a few key words during a review conference for the HCP that helped me find sources to
prove that police brutality affects society at large, but they were also useful in the AP as I tried
the hardest to prove that racism is present in every aspect of American society. Here you can see
the key words that I was given during my first conference with the first draft of the HCP (which
can be found on the “HCP” section of the ePortfolio).
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In addition, here you can see advice Annie, my instructor,
gave me during the second draft of the AP in which she
specifically told me to show how racism causes police brutality;
not doing so would impact my grade much like it did for my
HCP. Therefore, I searched for sources to proved racial
inequalities are real in the economy, in the criminal justice
system, and in every aspect of American society.
The first image is taken from the 2nd draft of the AP and the second image is taken from the final
draft of the AP (both which can be found in the “AP” section of ePortfolio). The red star is to
mark the difference between both drafts. In the second image (the final draft) you can see the
first of three paragraphs that I added, which explain how and why racism is the root cause of
police brutality.
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I knew that the HCP was lacking this evidence and yet I did not try to add it because I felt I
would overwhelm myself trying to prove that racism exists in a paper that talks about police
brutality; an already controversial topic. Nevertheless, I listened to what my instructor and other
peer reviews told me to do, and the work eventually paid off because I did in fact receive a better
grade for the AP than the HCP.
In order to strengthen my HCP and AP, I had to make sure I strategically evoked pathos
and logos as well as provide as many counterarguments as I could. One way that I evoked pathos
in the HCP and the AP was through the use of images. This was something that I was rather
uncomfortable with because I have almost never used non statistical images in an academic
paper. I felt that using regular pictures would distract my readers while I’m talking about a very
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serious and controversial topic: police brutality. In spite of my fear and uncertainty of using
images, I found out that they can be very useful in convincing readers about a given topic.
In the case of my HCP, I
decided to use a graphic
image of Rodney King after
his beating and an image of
the young Tanir Rice to
evoke pathos in my readers
so that they can really
sympathize with victims of
police brutality (found in the “HCP”
section of the ePortfolio). Because
these images evoke emotion, my
readers will be more inclined to
believe that police brutality is a very
serious social issue that can have
deadly repercussions.
Similarly, in my AP, I used an image of the infamous LA riots and the more recent, Ferguson
riots to show my readers how police brutality can cause social discord.
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This screenshot shows the
context in which I
strategically placed both of
these images in order to make
an impact on my readers.
Lastly, while I stated my
arguments in both the HCP
and the AP, I also stated many
counterarguments so that my
ethos as the writer can be
strengthened as well as the
overall quality of the
arguments. Initially, I was
afraid that this tactic would decrease my credibility because in my mind, I was simply giving all
go this information and then stating why there are many limitations or why it was ineffective,
etc. To my surprise, I was told by Annie and other peers that this actually increases my credibility
because I am telling my readers that I understand both sides of an argument or that I am aware
that there are certain limitations to my arguments. One example of this comes from the 3rd draft
of my HCP where I am explaining the statistics of how many Black people are killed in the U.S
by police and then stating that the statistics are not detailed and thus do not explain the stories
behind the deaths; we do not know if they were reasonable self-defense deaths or deaths by
unnecessary force.
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The yellow note is feedback I
received from Annie which
made me feel more confident in
explaining the limitations or
counterarguments for the
arguments I present. Presenting
counterarguments played an
especially key role in the AP
where I presented proposed solution for police brutality and explained why they have been
ineffective. Applying this method in the Advocacy Project almost felt natural to me. Instead of
advocating for one solution, I decided to present three solutions and explain the reasons why they
have not solved police brutality. Had I not presented any solid counterarguments, my credibility
as a writer would be diminished.
It is safe to say that I have definitely come a long way as a writer since the first day of
college back in Fall of 2014. My high school did not prepare me to be writing at a college level
and this made me feel inadequate and little in this big university full of so many smart and
privileged students. I took W37 Spring 2015 and my grades Fall quarter really reflect the writing
level that I was at (in my two years at UC Irvine, I received my lowest grades Fall ’14). W37
taught me how to find, analyze, and annotate sources, a skill that is obviously necessary at an R1
institution. This had been extremely useful as I tackled PSB research papers, literature review
papers, etc. W39C made me refresh this skill and enhanced it when I learned how to conduct
research more effectively by using tools such as the “Cited by” tool. Perhaps the most useful
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thing that I have learned in W39C, is the importance of having concise and informative topic
sentences. This is an important skill that has helped me become a better writer not only in this
class, but in my other classes as well. I’ve realized that having good topic sentences not only
help my readers know whats coming next, but it also helps me stay on topic throughout the
paragraphs. I hope to one day master this skill because I really believe that it is an important skill
to develop as a college student and for my future academic endeavors.
W39C has not been an easy course, but I expected nothing less. I had heard horror stories
about this course and knew how rigorous this particular course of the W39 series was. I had to
mentally prepare myself to take this course; I was only partly successful. I received rather good
grades in both the HCP and the AP, but I did procrastinate in both assignments. Now I'm only
haunted by the grades I could have received had I managed my time better between these
assignments and assignments in my other classes. W39C not only taught me value skills to
conduct research and to create argumentative and persuasive essays, but it also made me become
passionate about a very controversial topic: police brutality. This class has shown me the power
in researching and learning about issues that affect our society today. I learned the importance of
learning history to understand the world we live in today; this is an invaluable skill that not only
helps me in my academics, but helps me be a more educated, reflective, responsive, and
empathetic member of society.