Final Reflection

   In this ENC course, I have learned many valuable aspects of writing that I intend to carry with me to utilize in my other classes and future career. Going into this class, I knew that I was able to write and say what I needed to say, but I never felt that it was engaging for the reader. Leaving this class, I not only learned how to use genre, write a rhetorical analysis, and compose a paper based on a topic, but I can also say that I am a confident writer. 

   Before taking this class, I had never written a true, from-scratch research paper, and the idea of it overwhelmed me. I did not know where to begin or what the final paper was supposed to look like. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted my research question to be, but after I created a mindmap and laid out all my ideas, I was able to figure out my question and some topics I wanted to touch on in my paper. Finding scholarly sources was also difficult for me, especially since I had never had to use a scholarly source before. Now that I know how to find scholarly sources, it is going to be a lot easier to find sources for my other classes. In fact, I needed to find a scholarly source for one of my other classes and I was able to find one without any issues. Writing the actual research paper took a long time, but as with any paper, once I figured out what I wanted to say my writing flew. For project two, I had written many rhetorical analyses’ before, but from reading the textbook pages, I was able to see all of the different aspects that can be analyzed which made writing my paper a lot easier. Project three was one of the most unique projects I have ever been assigned. I enjoyed creating my own artifacts, and because I learned how to do an in-depth rhetorical analysis from project two, the rhetorical analysis was much easier than has been in my past projects.  

In addition to learning how to write these papers and what each one entails, I also learned a lot of information about my topic, health insurance. I knew the basics of health insurance, but after doing research on the topic, I learned more about it than I ever could have imagined. I believe that the information that I learned in my topic will be beneficial in my future career in nursing. I now have a better understanding of why low-income families struggle to attain health insurance which will help me to have empathy for any patients who do not have health insurance.  

I even learned new writing skills from my feedback on my projects. I learned which sections of my writing seemed confusing and did not make sense. From my feedback, I learned that when writing, when in doubt, over-explain something, just to make sure the reader understands what you are trying to explain.  

All in all, I learned a lot from this class, and I am going to take the skills and information that I learned in this class and put it to good work in the future.