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Danae Roberts

Professor Moore

English 1301 Honors

6 December 2019

A Reflection on the Semester

At the start of this semester, I had no idea what to expect. I had never been in a

classroom, and I felt completely and utterly unprepared and terrified. I knew that the classroom

experience would be valuable for me to have before I went away to college, though, and that is

mainly why I wanted to take classes at ACC. What started out as an intimidating experience

turned into one that I actually enjoyed. I have never enjoyed writing before, and I have never

been of the opinion that I am good at it. This course, however, has given me more confidence in

my abilities. I learned how to analyze and draw conclusions from my analysis, I have been able

to improve my writing skills and gain more confidence in them, and my eyes have been opened

to the bias that is in everything.

The first major assignment of the semester was the media bias essay, and from this

assignment I learned valuable lessons about bias in the media and I learned the importance of

analyzing everything that I read and hear before forming my opinion based on it. In addition, this

project helped me figure out a writing process that worked for me. I discovered that if I make a

Word document that contains all the important information pertaining to the essay that is found

in the actual assignment sheet, I can then plan out what elements I need to include in the essay.

After I do that, I outline my essay, which helps immensely by allowing me to have an idea of

what I want to write before I sit down to write it. The media bias assignment has been my lowest

grade thus far, and in the comments left by Professor Moore she mainly said that I needed to
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include much more analysis. I also had some citation errors and some awkward wording.

Overall, I was happy with my grade, and having a list of issues to improve on for my next essay

was actually helpful.

The second assignment was the documentary bias essay and it was my favorite

assignment of the semester. I became informed about the fact that there is bias in documentaries,

not just in the news. I picked a documentary that focused on killer whales and that was a perfect

choice for me, because anything that has to do with marine biology is fascinating to me. In an

effort to improve from the media bias essay and not make the same mistakes, I paid special

attention to making sure that I included enough analysis, did not have any citation errors, and

avoided awkward wording. I succeeded in ridding my paper of those issues, and Professor Moore

remarked positively on my analysis portions, specifically. In my effort to rid my paper of my

previous errors, however, I overlooked a couple of new ones. In this essay, I had a few improper

uses of a semi-colon, a couple contractions, an accidental use of the word "we", and two

unnecessary commas. The semi-colon and comma issues are something that I have been working

on recently, but it is apparent that there is always room for improvement. I really enjoyed being

able to conduct the research for this essay and gather all of the facts together, as well as being

able to analyze and pick apart the documentary.

The visual propaganda assignment was our third one, and I have got to say, I had a rough

start with this one. I had no idea what I wanted my visual to look like, or even what I wanted it to

be about. Eventually, with the help of Professor Moore, I was able to pick a topic and create my

visual. I am not sure what her feedback is on it yet, but my goal for this assignment was to make

it better than the last. I am not sure if I was able to do that, but even if I was not, I know that
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whatever feedback and comments that Professor Moore leaves on it will help me to further

improve my writing.

This semester I learned so many valuable lessons that I know will help me throughout my

life. Through this course I have discovered just how pervasive bias is in today's world, and I have

learned the importance of analyzing everything that I read, hear, and see, before basing my

opinion off of it. I have been able to improve my writing skills, as well as establish techniques

that work well for me. I am happy with the progress that I have made this semester, and I hope

that as I continue in my education, my writing will only become stronger.