Reflection

At the beginning of the semester, I did not truly understand how proper analysis should be used for building an argument. I always thought that my job as a reader and writer was only to understand an author, not to use their ideas to make my own original argument. Originally, I thought that making a refutable claim meant simply taking a obscure stance on an author’s writing and trying to support it. Through writing these papers, I have learned what my goal should be as a writer and how to use outside texts to support my own idea. In the research process specifically, I originally underestimated how much evidence I needed to truly develop my argument. I started off by filling my research plan with more ideas than I could handle. As I went through the process using a narrower topic, I realized that all the information that I needed to build my argument only became apparent as I went along. Specifically, I only recently realized that I need to address the fact that many students who meet educational standards do well in life. Addressing that issue is more complex than I originally realized. Though this is not exactly a case of prospective writing, I realized that writing completely off a rigid structure made in one sitting is not truly complete. The process to make insightful and comprehensive writing requires a lot of time to look back and constantly reevaluate what I previously thought was true.