For this assignment, we were supposed to select a topic of our choice and research it to the best of our abilities, following which we were supposed to find evidence to support our claim based on the research of our sources. While writing this paper, I kept in mind my intended audience, which in this case were people who wanted to learn more about the ways we can reduce the effects of air pollution. I wrote for those who sought a further understanding of this topic. So what I did to appeal to them was tailor my language in a way that would be a liking to their appeal. I kept my tone in the paper, sincere and professional. I wanted readers to be able to understand my writing deeply, as this is a topic I strongly care about. And by keeping my tone professional, it would make readers take my work more seriously. By going back and forth between these two tones I realized that how you address your paper matters a lot in how the audience perceives it. Thereby, I thought my tone was appropriate for this paper. Furthermore, I felt my rhetorical choices were appropriate as I felt it would best help the readers understand my paper while keeping it in a simple demeanor. I intended to make sure my audience understood what goes on in the world in terms of air pollution. Therefore, I wanted to focus on making sure my message gets across to my readers. And in the end, I hoped those who read my paper could understand just how big of a problem air pollution is and put together their judgments based on the evidence I collected. 

A meaningful insight I gained through this phase is that when writing a research paper, to prove my argument, I have to make sure I have an abundance of strong, supporting evidence to get my point across. Also, just merely listing evidence wouldn’t be sufficient enough to prove my claim. There is a lot more to uncover underneath these pieces of evidence, and it is my job to explain them. A research essay is essentially portioned off by half of it being evidence from different sources, and the other half is me analyzing those evidence. As I was finishing writing this paper, I realized that I have become better at finding reliable and useful sources. Essentially, in this phase, I gained the knowledge of knowing the importance of how much coordination between your evidence and analysis matters. I now know how prominent and useful it is, which showed me that when writing a paper I should remember this to prove my argument, in the most effective way possible. In the end, I became more effective in analyzing evidence, as I now know a deeper way to analyze evidence.

The concepts and terms that most impacted my learning and writing practices were understanding how purpose, argument, evidence, and audience play a big role in developing a text. The purpose is a leading part of any text, it’s the point I am trying to make to the reader. Evidence is essentially the proof I use to prove my argument, and without evidence, I have an invalid argument. And the audience, from my point of view, shaped how I wrote my text. Based on my audience, I had to choose specific writing strategies that’ll appeal and get my point across to them. Keeping these in mind, throughout my paper I used these concepts and terms to subconsciously make my argument persuasive. From the previous phases, which also occurred again in this phase, I learned that sometimes a lot more is revealed when the focus is not on what the author says but instead on what the author does and how they get their message across while using evidence to back up their argument.

This phase’s assignment has helped me to achieve multiple course learning outcomes, but the best/main being number 3, and 7. Course Learning Outcome 3 is to “Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing”. I felt I achieved this CLO because, throughout the process of writing this narrative, there were multiple steps I had to do that led to this final piece. I had to read my fellow peer’s papers, write multiple drafts, collaborate with my peers on theirs and my paper, and revise/edit those drafts I did. But, by doing this for every draft and me realizing my mistakes, I knew what to do to improve my paper and in the process gained the skills to fix that for next time. Course Learning Outcome 7 is to “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias”. I feel I achieved this CLO because at first, I had trouble finding online sources that supplied the specific evidence I needed, but after needing to do this multiple times, I feel like I now know what to do to make this process quicker next time. I learned that what and where you look for your sources matters a lot, as it’s also a factor in the quality of evidence you have. In conclusion, this phase got me to think about how often what we look for is not what we need. It is more so how you use what you find to best fit your situation. In the end, all of these factors helped contribute to making my paper stronger and sound more credible and knowledgeable.

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