Reflective Introduction

It has been a very eye opening and inspirational quarter in 39C. Through the
historical conversation and advocacy essay I could see the power of research as a
strategy to not only please but persuade readers that your idea is important and
convincing. Through writing the two essays and weekly exercises I have found a
tangible weakness in my writing, clarity, and it is evident in my writing that I have
focused on revising based on this point. My clarity revision included word revision,
moving paragraphs around, and simply removing irrelevant ideas that do not
correspond with the thesis.

Composing the draft!

While composing the historical conversation essay I learned the importance
of having to research ahead of time. Writing about the topic when I knew exactly
what the topic was about was much easier than trying to write the essay than
implementing quotes from the sources. For example when I wrote the Physical
Harms and the Psychological Harms of gaming I had already read through 5
articles regarding addicted gamers having unfit bodies and being attached to their
characters. Reading about the articles made it extremely simple for me to write
about the topic because I could just use the research that they have done and
expand upon it, instead of having to write an idea of what the harms were and try
to incorporate research data.
Writing the advocacy was a challenge for me because I thought I had to write
about the history first, and then advocate my idea based on the historical facts.
When I realized that I could just advocate without telling the history and use the

research to support my advocacy instead of using my thoughts to support the

research, the essay became clearer to me. While drafting the advocacy essay I hit a
breakthrough, where I stopped writing about history of the subject and directly
began advocating. I would go through my sources once more, wrote down what
details I wanted to include in my advocacy and began to present my idea. I found
that presenting the idea with all the history writing sounded extremely redundant
which made the essay sound less convincing. Also the flow of the essay was very
random, with the thesis not emphasizing on a specific topic, which made the essay
not flow at all. I revised the essay the essay thinking of how to structurally place my
paragraphs so they reader would not be confused.

Revising!
In my historical conversation essay, my word choice was often confusing,
using words that would not be known by non-gamers. Also my introduction
paragraph was extremely muddled in the way that the essay would try to state a
fact yet seem unsure of its validity. The first sentence of my historical conversation
essay was even muddled because I was unsure of the exact numbers, making it
sound unclear, and unreliable.

The obsession with Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPGs) is

becoming an increasingly popular subject as it is becoming a large problem among youth

today. From the start of the internet age, where one or two MMORPGs would be released
per year, game companies are now releasing them by the dozens

Here it shows that I use the words is becoming and one or two it shows
unclearness in what I am trying to give the readers, in revisions I would take out the
muddled words and put clear decisive instances instead, using sources as a backup
to make my point stronger and more comprehensive. Also in my final revisions I
would look for all the unclear words such as this and sometimes and replace
them with words such as EverQuest and everyday. Although it was an essay to
explain a topic, I would jump from one subject to the next, without transitioning the
idea at all; making it confusing for the readers who do not exactly what subject I
would be talking about. Also in these subjects I would not clearly define them to the
full extent, often leaving the readers confused of what I am trying to say. This was
due to me not explaining the quotes and not introducing the quotes when I inserted
them in. In my final revisions I would go through and see if I had a pretext, and an
explanation for all my quotes. Giving an idea was my forte, but explaining them with
words is my weakness because I tend to use hypothetical situations which are not
suited well for essays, because they are not definite enough. Using multi-modal was
particularly useful in helping me explain my ideas because it showed the readers
the facts directly. When the readers already know the facts it easier for me to
convey my idea, knowing the readers wont be as confused.

Similarly, in my advocacy essay, my sentence placement was a downfall

towards my idea. One sentence I used was

Of the half a billion people worldwide who play video and computer games
on a daily basis, 400 million are MMORPG players. Over four billion hours of

video games played per week around the world and 3 billion hours belong to
that of MMORPG.

This being my first sentence in my advocacy essay would confuse the readers as
what my essay was truly about. I would describe the history of my topic too much
without connecting it to what I was trying to advocate. In fact I didnt even bring up
my advocated idea until the end of the fourth page. To revise this I summarized the
first four pages into one small paragraph then expanded my advocacy to clarify the
idea more. The word choice I used in my advocacy was also poor. For example I
would write, To begin my plan I would make elementary schools have gaming
awareness campaigns where there schools will implement a class or program that
teaches the dangers of gaming. As one can see this sentence is very muddled, I do
not say what my plan is to start off the sentence, making it unclear what I am trying
to say, and I do not explain what this gaming awareness campaign is, and I am not
definite in saying what kind of program this is by saying class or program. To fix
this sentence I would write, To begin my anti-addictive-gaming- campaign, I would
like to require elementary schools to implement a class that sheds light on the
dangers of gaming. This sentence both clarifies what kind of campaign this and
demonstrates the real motive of the advocacy. This is where my breakthrough
happened, where I realized that I could use clarification of sentences throughout the
paper, and in every paper I write in fact.

Importance of Clarity!
Clarity is important because it makes it easier for the reader to read and
comprehend your writing. They are more likely to enjoy reading what I have written

and, in turn, make them more likely to believe what I am writing about. Writing with
clarity makes writing more effective, because it focuses the readers attention
towards the real intention of the essay, and with clear words can make them
understand it fully. Clarity also makes writing easier, because it allows oneself to
understand your own message better and also the structure that clarity brings to an
essay makes it so that ideas can flow inside ones head easier. Since we write
differently than the way we speak, it is important that we write precisely and
concisely. Unclear writing, unfortunately, can often mislead readers. Using incorrect
words and/or punctuation can lead to a reader misinterpreting what one really
means to say. With that said, writing clearly is something that must be practiced
and sometimes difficult to master. Writing 39C definitely made me write with more
clarity, making me use my words more carefully, structurally, multi-modally, and
emphasizing on the topics I need.