Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

I have shown perseverance and openness in developing ideas, especially in my research paper, by researching the many different perspectives on my issue. I then used each side to develop my own unique thesis. By reading several different articles thoroughly to gather my thoughts for my writing, I have used reading and composing as a way to think and explore ideas. I have identified an awareness for multiple writing practices by completing assignments that varied from each other. For example, I completed a number of assignments that have displayed different aspects of writing including visual rhetoric, a semester-long research argument, and creating summaries of academic articles. To demonstrate responsiveness to readers’ feedback, I took the feedback on writing and incorporated in when I when revised my work.

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

To interpret and understand writers’ messages, I composed an annotated bibliography that evaluated sources that were used in my research argument. For each source, I described its backround by purposefully summarizing it, and I also listed how I used that particular source. In my research paper, I synthesized these different texts to develop and shape my own ideas. I didn’t just pick a side in a controversial topic, but instead I looked at both sides and created my own. I realized that a text can develop its own meaning, and can that the way a text is interpreted varies between individuals.

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

In my Visual Rhetoric assignment, I analyzed a 30-second public service announcement to express its main purpose to my readers. I analyzed this thoughtfully, and did more than just describe what I saw on the screen in a particular second. I gave meaning to these things by making conclusions based on the visuals in front of me. I also used the visuals to describe what audience the ad was focused on. For example, my ad was about drunk-driving prevention, so my audience was to people over the age of twenty-one who drink alcohol. Most of the people in my ad were young, so to be even more specific, it was targeted to young adults who were over the age of 21 to stop them from driving a car while intoxicated.

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

When locating academic sources to us in my definition argument, causal argument, and rebuttal argument, I mainly used Google Scholar and the Rowan library databases. After developing the main idea I wanted to use, I evaluated the sources I found. To evaluate my sources, I would read over the information after I already knew the main ideas I wanted to discuss, so that I could be sure the sources were going to be useful. By evaluating sources, I also recognized that there are different types of information, different ways to find information, and different ways to interpret information. I gave credit to the authors of these sources by making a works cited for every assignment, and by informally citing them throughout my writing.

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

I recognize and justify my own point of view about the social topic I picked since I backed it up with evidence from credible academic sources. Since social topics can connect to people emotionally, it’s important to show respect for another point of view. By not completely shutting out another person’s point of view, you will also keep them engaged in your writing. I acknowledged and showed respect for different views/opinions of others in my writing by finding sources that go against my argument in my research paper in my Rebuttal. I tried to clearly and briefly express the complex ideas that I gathered from my sources. I always informal cited the author’s work when discussing ideas from my sources.