REFLECTION ON THE ARGUMENT

I began the class with a fairly rigid structure in my writing, however, I lacked diversity of style and insight. I knew how to write an organized essay and create a cohesive argument; however, there were many times when my essays were written in a very straightforward manner rather than creating more thought-provoking and in-depth critical thinking. As we progressed through this semester, I became a better writer analytically, integrated evidence more proficiently, and created a clearer academic voice. The comparison of my earlier writing, "Youth Sports Injuries: Protecting Young Athletes Through Education and Safety," which was an argumentative essay, with one of my last assignments, "Franz Kafka's Absurdism and Youth Sports Injuries," which was a comparative analysis, shows clearly that my writing has evolved from being shallow, less informative and less intentional, to becoming more informed, more meaningful and more effective. 

One area of improvement I have seen the most in my writing is in developing the ability to create, support, and defend strong arguments based upon valid and reliable evidence. My argumentative essay demonstrated a strong commitment to providing credible evidence to support a well-defined thesis. For example, in my essay "Youth Sports Injuries: Protecting Young Athletes Through Education and Safety" I provided evidence from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2024) to support my thesis that "education on injury prevention strategies...will significantly reduce sports-related injuries to young athletes." Clearly, I could use other sources to back up my claims; however, most of the time during the course of my writing, I would provide evidence as a way to prove a point but rarely do I explore what these findings mean at a greater level or whether or not they show us anything else. 

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After completing the majority of the course work, I developed the ability to move past simply providing evidence to analyzing evidence and interpreting it in a more critical fashion. A large portion of this new found ability can be attributed to my comparative analysis essay. The way I utilized Franz Kafka's absurdist view-point to further examine the youth sports injuries issue demonstrates that I am no longer satisfied with just proving points using evidence, but now I want to take those pieces of information and understand how they relate to each other. To illustrate this I looked at how youth athletes are forced to endure rigorous training and immense pressure to succeed from society. These factors reflect Kafka's theme of oppressive authority and illogical rule. This represents a tremendous leap forward in my ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated concepts and engage in a higher degree of critical thinking. 

The assignments in this class allowed me to hone many of the aspects mentioned above by providing opportunities for me to write from various angles. I wrote from a variety of perspectives, i.e., an argumentative paper; a comparative paper; a literary analysis paper. A significant portion of my learning came from working through the construction of a claim and supporting that claim with evidence (argumentative paper). Another large portion came from being able to think and connect between two or more concepts in order to compare them. Additionally, the opportunity to participate in peer workshops gave me the chance to receive and respond to feedback regarding my papers. Many times, other peers were able to point out some of the areas I would need to improve upon, if at all possible. Ultimately, revisiting my drafts based on feedback received during peer workshops allowed me to grow as a writer. 

One major aspect I was able to improve upon as a result of completing this course was developing an awareness of the conventions of academic writing. Some of those include MLA format and citing properly. When the course started, I knew how to cite properly, however, I did not always use the correct format. The more I practiced using sources within my papers, the better I felt about utilizing proper format for my Works Cited pages. Overall, using proper citation and MLA format enhanced the professionalism of my papers. It also added credibility to myself as a writer. 

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I have also been able to develop greater organizational skills throughout this semester. Even though my early writing was structured fairly well, it didn't always flow well. The more I wrote, the more I understood how to lay out my essays in such a way so that each paragraph logically flows from the last. For instance, the paragraphs in my Kafka essay are laid out in a specific way where each builds upon the last. This exemplifies how much I've grown in terms of organizing long, complicated arguments into easy-to-understand formats. 

All-in-all, this course has greatly assisted in improving my writing and teaching me skills that can help me professionally. The confidence I now possess in the analytical aspects of my writing has increased dramatically since starting this course. I am confident now in writing well-organized, well-supported arguments. Although there is still time for me to develop and refine my writing style and add additional layers of analysis, I feel as though I have made considerable improvements during this course. 

When looking back at my earlier writings compared to later writings, my growth as a writer is obvious. What began as simply presenting information has evolved into actively reading and interpreting it. Both the quality and quantity of my writing have increased substantially due to this evolution. The writing assignments in this course provided the necessary tools for me to learn to write in addition to the peer review process and revisions that took place