Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.
I know that I could have done a more thorough job on this core value throughout the semester, even though my work may not depict a firm grasp of this concept. Nevertheless, gathering copious amounts of knowledge and information for my research paper helped me to be much more open-minded about my topic of discrimination by police officers on the road. I was set on strictly supporting the side of the frequently targeted African Americans in this argument when starting this assignment, and while I still remain on the same side, I am now more open to hearing out opposing views, such as the theory that police officers only seek people violating the law, and consistently serve without discriminating against African Americans. In my Rebuttal Rewrite, my research led me to remember that traffic stops can simply be due to a law being broken, and not to just assume that the intent in all stops are derived from the driver’s race. Research is important because I could not write a successful paper without understanding both opposing viewpoints of the issue being discussed.
Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities.
On the assignments that required me to do so, I was able to see that close and critical reading/analysis allows me to understand how and why texts create meaning. The first assignment that comes to mind is my work on Safer Saws. I synthesized ideas from multiple articles into the same assignment effectively. I assessed multiple claims from different people on the same saw, from various readings, and did it in a cohesive, comprehendible way. Also, this was not from a text, but my writing on the Visual Rewrite assignment showed that I am capable of critically analyzing a piece of work and understand the meaning it creates. Breaking down the specifics of what people did every second helped me to get a better understanding of why they did it. Regardless of the fact that it was a video rather than text, I feel the same concept can be applied in the fact that I was able to take complex material and make it mesh together.
Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.
I would like to believe that I was able to analyze the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments rather well. Most specifically, I think that I took the purpose and audience into consideration when it comes to my research paper on discrimination by police while driving. My opinions may have gotten in my way when trying to write a non-biased paper, but nevertheless, my purpose was to make whoever may read the paper socially aware of my topic. Also, taking my audience’s opinions into consideration is what made me look deeper in research to understand and respect both sides of the argument. In the end of my Rebuttal Rewrite, I actually addressed the audience by saying that regardless of what side they may take, this is really happening and to neglect that fact will only make the problem worse.
Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.
Throughout the process of writing my definition, causal, and rebuttal essays on discrimination by police while driving, I did not necessarily incorporate many different sources within those texts. Not to say that I did not have them, but I probably could have done more to involve a wider variety of resources in those arguments. Furthermore, I will still utilize many more articles, facts, and statistics in my final paper. I found that the papers leading up to my final copy were somewhat of a trial and error process of seeing how to tie it all together. Referencing back to my Bibliography, I have an abundance of sources supporting both different viewpoints of whether this discrimination exists, or traffic stops are solely based on the violation of laws. With that being said, my prior work may not reflect meeting the expectations to support my own ideas, but I am certain that my finished research paper will fulfill these requirements and contain evidence to support my interpretations, as a final paper of any variety should.
Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation.
As far as I am concerned, I did a good job of respecting my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. More so, in my Rebuttal Rewrite, I believe I was able to cover both sides of the argument fairly; whether discrimination by police exists, or rather it is solely based on violating the law. I did so while also being able to logically refute the opposing viewpoint with statistics. The topic I chose of discrimination by police while driving is extremely complex without a doubt, so it is difficult, but I tried to stay openminded to the best of my ability even though I firmly stand on one side of the topic. When it comes to appropriate citations, I did not learn how to properly do so until a few weeks into this course so there are still things that may need to be edited and corrected. Nevertheless, I now firmly understand how to do so, even though the current state of some of my work may not reflect that.
Rowan Counterintuitive 