Kokoro Matsui

FIQWS Thursday

Reflection

Over the course of three months taking the writing seminar has taught me many different ways of approaching my writing. It was a tedious process because if I was unaware of what mistakes were then I would continuously repeat the same mistakes until i was fully aware of it. Throughout the course I learned different writing styles. One of the early lessons we talked about about the writer’s audience and what our message was and getting the point across. Another lesson I learned was on how to write a conference proposal. Prior to that, I did not know what a conference proposal was until it was brought to my attention that I had to write one. After the proposal, I had to write a lengthy paper about the proposal. To me, writing about Iranian culture seemed harder since I lacked background knowledge about it but that is why Mr. Mike stressed about a strong research problem (a problem most students encountered). With a strong research problem, you are able to build more information. Mr. Mike said to first start off with a topic question. Then you turn it into a deeper question. Finally, take that question and make it a more complex problem. The research problem should be a very specific, non-rhetorical question. For the conference paper, we were told to include various outside sources, as well as the opponent’s side to the claim so including however in the abstract was important. Throughout the paper, students had trouble staying on topic so that was one of my main issues. Towards the end of the semester, we had to write a journal manuscript about our conference paper. Personally, it was easier to write the journal manuscript than the conference paper. It was more outside sources which made the paper easier to write. After we submitted the journal manuscript, we had two peers to read over it and give us reviews. I enjoyed reading what my peers had to say about my writing because it was new criticism about my work besides Mr. Mike’s. Overall, I learned a lot about the complexity of writing and what it takes to become a strong writer. I will take my peers and Mr. Mike’s strenuous comments along with me.