Richi Barua

Professor Ewan

FIQWS

6 May 2019

My Process on Writing the Argumentative Essay

Argumentative essays are something that I am accustomed to writing, but I always still struggle with them. Going into this particular argumentative essay, I  expect it to be hard because it was quite different from the expository essay since I had to support a particular side. It was indeed hard due to the structure that I was required to follow. Something that did help me though, was prioritizing certain parts. I mostly prioritized learning the formats of Classical/Rogerian/ Toulmin arguments since that is something that struggled with the most. This essay was indeed hard but by working hard, I was able to do it and also improve my understanding and knowledge of academic writing and academic arguments.

The assignment itself was written based on past and new approaches. I gathered my evidence and organized it like I always do. The new method that was utilized though, was checking for elements that were required over and over again. My essay was based on the classical oration method and I kept on checking if I did it correctly. Although the classical oration method is similar to how I used to write my essays, it is still different in many aspects. In order to reduce mistakes, I was making sure that I was doing my essay according to the right format since I wanted to learn about classical oration and since I did not want to mess up. The utilization of the past and the new approach, in this case, helped me be more organized, which helped me learn more about classical oration.

The first thesis which I had written sounded very wrongfully biased. With the help of my professor, I was able to change my thesis into something that didn’t assume things. After gaining help and rewriting my thesis, I also had to make sure that my thesis was strong. In order to do that, I tested if my thesis had a “who”, a “should not do what”, and a “because” variable. This helped me make my thesis stronger and better. By doing this process, I was able to learn how to write a thesis and how to present a thesis in academic writing.

One of the most important aspects of the argumentative essay was writing in MLA code. Writing in MLA format is something that I had experienced before, and therefore, formatting the argumentative essay was okay. Starting off, I made sure that I followed simple requirements such as doing the proper heading or having the proper font. Then, throughout the paper, I made sure to correctly cite since parenthetical citations are really important. I also made sure to correctly cite in the work cited page. I followed page 518 for this part since I did not want to make any mistakes. By doing this and by carefully writing my paper, I did indeed fix any mistakes that I saw. I also gained more practice in terms of reviewing my paper and I gained knowledge on MLA format.

While making sure that I was following the MLA code, I was able to improve my citing skills even more. For in-text citations, I learned how to determine when it is necessary to use the author’s last name or when it is necessary to use the page number. For end text citations, I also was able to learn how to organize and cite each information correctly with hanging indents. By learning such, my understanding of academic writing broadened even more. MLA code was a huge component of this paper and I am extremely happy that I was able to improve my skills on it because it pushed me to learn more about academic writing, which will definitely help me in the future.

Besides following the MLA code, I also made sure to introduce my evidence according to what was required. I stated the text’s name, the author’s name, and gave a short summary. After using source introduction, I also used quote integration for certain sources. I learned to integrate quotes more efficiently by combining quotes within the same sentence. After introducing quotes and presenting quotes,  I was also able to synthesize my thoughts. Through the information that I was able to get through various sources, I was able to combine those ideas along with mine in order to prove a point. After combining those ideas, I recapped my evidence using signal phrases. Signal phrases are something that I have utilized before, and therefore, I did not have much difficulty with it. I took two to three of the strongest sources, and then I summarized them using signal phrases. By doing this, I was able to improve my skills on summarizing texts and I was able to gain more practice with signal phrases.         

After writing the first draft of the argumentative paper, I read my paper over for general mistakes such as spelling, grammar, and punctuations. I also did peer review and my peer’s suggestions helped me because I used words such as “will” on my first draft, and since they pointed it out, I was able to fix that mistake. Next, with my peer’s advice in mind, I constructed a second draft which I send to the writing tutor so she could help me with it. The writing tutor mainly gave me grammatical advice, which I ended up taking. After the tutor reviewed my paper, I proofread my paper in order to check for different elements at the same time. I did mainly check if I had all the parts of the classical oration method because I was generally scared of messing up with that, but I was also checking for other elements such as grammar. Doing this helped me improve my knowledge of academic writing and academic argument because I was able to identify parts of my essay and I was able to fix those parts. Identifying certain parts of your essay can be confusing and so, being able to identify is something that I am happy about.

Throughout the process of writing the argumentative essay, I gained a better understanding of academic argument. Before going into this assignment, my general understanding of academic argument was that there needs to be a thesis, a background, a counterclaim, and a conclusion. This knowledge was limited and I definitely struggled, but I was also able to learn by struggling. I learned that I need to catch my audience’s attention, I learned that I need to present relevant background information, I learned that I need to counter against opposite claims and I learned how to summarize in the end. By gaining a better understanding of academic writing and academic argument, I was able to enhance my paper. I was able to organize my paper much efficiently and I was able to generally learn.

Writing the argumentative essay was a great experience. By writing it, I was able to understand academic writing even more. Through this essay, I learned to tackle argumentative essays, I learned more about my writing style, and I learned how to enhance my paper for the better by utilizing various methods that we learned about. Overall, writing the paper was hard and frustrating, but I was able to write it and I was able to gain more knowledge about writing, which will help me in the future in order to do various papers. Writing the argumentative essay was a great experience and I hope to use what I learned through this essay in the future.