Draft1 | lily

Ling-Li (Lily) Yen

Writing 39B/ Final Draft

Professor Harrison

24 August 2014

Reflection Essay

During the first half of the class, I have learned the history and the development of detective genre. Through massive amount of reading analytic texts of different scholars; such as, Panek and Dove, I learned that detective genre has strict formula and elements created by the author of Sherlock Holmes: Conan Doyle. Doyle is able to successfully design and develop the detective genre because not only his outstanding writing skills but also the perfect era he was born in. During Victorian era, industrial revolution begins which caused the increase of crime rate and technological devices, intriguing curiosity in crime and unknown areas. Moreover, although detective genre includes many creative plots and mystery cases, they all based on one constant pattern and qualities. The formula includes the rules of “the main character has to be a detective, main plot is investigation of a mystery case, the case has to be complicated, and the mystery always is solved in the end” (Panek 26); the unique four qualities of this genre is different than other convention is that the story “is transitory, intellectual undertaking, recreational, and strict literary form” (Dove). I am now able to distinguish the genre between fiction and detective genre because I have familiar with these details through the scholarly articles. For example, CSI TV series describes a group of crime investigators to solve murder cases. Before I have learned the four qualities and formula of detective genre, I was curious about why each case only use one episode instead of two or three. Now, I understand that the transitory story is to maintain the recreational purpose for the audience, which is brilliant idea to entice the viewer. Despite the intensive reading amount in first four weeks, these scholarly analytical texts have expanded my understanding toward the genre that I have always loved.

In the last five weeks, the class focus on the cinematic and characteristic adaptation that make detective genre becomes one of the most popular genres since 19th century till 21st century. During these weeks, I have learned the techniques of analyzing movies through writing forums after watch each series. In order to attract audiences, the show runners adapt the Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes literature into movies or TV series because people in 21st century are rarely read the novel. In modern society, people are more willing to watch TV shows and movies than read books; moreover, the plots of each episode and personalities of each character are design to adapt the socially background in modern days. Through close observation, audience can know the custom and moral standards in nowadays. For example, in American TV series Elementary by the show runner, Rob Doherty, he not only changes the gender of Dr. John Watson to Dr. Joan Watson but also allows Dr. Joan Watson have intimacy relationship with Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes’ brother. Today, society have more tolerate toward have sexual relationship without having marriage. Based on Conan Doyle’s Holmes series and Sherlock Holmes’ movies in 21st century, I am able to observe and analyze different social background, moral standard and technical development through movies. Furthermore, learning close cinematic techniques helps analyze movies and TV shows more accurately; such as, shooting types, lighting, composition and editing techniques, etc. Before learning these shooting methods, I only watched plots and storyline of films, and I neglect the importance of composition, lighting, or shot types. Being able to closely analyze each scene, as an audience, I can recognize emotions of characters, meaning of plots, and feelings of spaces based on clips or few scenes. In addition, the theme of this half of the class makes me feel interesting. When I watch any movie or TV shows, I would pay attention on the shooting technique and editing skills that editors used in the show. This process makes me more excited when I watch a show. These cinematic techniques helps me explain a movie in depth instead of analyzing a scene merely based on its plots, which changed the way I have always watched a show and intrigued my curiosity toward techniques of cinematic.

Literature review and rhetorical analysis essays are two major assignments in this course, which I am more interested in rhetorical analysis because I have more passion in the topic of cinematic technique. Therefore, I will fully revise rhetorical analysis essay. The strength of this paper is that I have great supporting examples and many details. More importantly, I closely analyze each scene instead of summary Sherlock Holmes’ movies or TV series. On the other hand, I have poor organization in the essay of literature review. Although I have great thoughts and ideas, I did not do well on composing and write thoroughly which it requires more effort and time to revise the entire essay. Nevertheless, the paragraph I choose to revise is the second paragraph which I explained the reason and the background makes Conan Doyle’s detective series became well known during Victorian era.

Furthermore, through cinematic wiki page, I have learned not only communication skills but also understand basic shooting types. This second wiki page, our group tried to divide up the work; however, we require communication through emails which could be quite challenging sometimes. Last five weeks of the class, I am not in the States and have twelve hours differences. As a result, I have to be responsible to finish the page as early as I can and reply every email as soon as I received them. Although I am not in the States and in the same time zone, I initially have emailed and assigned works to each member. Luckily, my teammates are not only responsible for replying emails as soon as possible but also willing to contribute their work as a group. Through this project, I have learned the importance of communication which not only avoids the work only on one person’s shoulder but also helps the final presentation of the project.

Above all, flexibility, openness, persistence and responsibility are three habits that I have. I am willing to ask for opinions to help me improve. Also, an online class has less interaction with professor and with the rest of the class; thus, it is more difficult to keep up with the schedule because it requires a lot of self-discipline. However, I am persistent and responsible, so I will continue to work hard through the end of the quarter. Also, flexibility is needed in order to well cooperate and communicate with teammates in the group project. The difficulty of group project is that group members cannot cooperate with each other. Yet, I learned how to discuss and work things out with each member. As a result, each of us can finish the work in time and have high efficiency. Last, I have gradually developed persistence and responsibility during these eight weeks. I am out of country in August, so it is hard for me to keep up with the class due to time difference. Yet, I have made up my mind to finish well in this quarter. Every time when I feel lazy to do assignments, I would remind myself of the goal that I wrote down in the beginning of the quarter, which is finish each assignment in time. I know it is hard to keep up with the online course, and it needs a lot of perseverance and persistence for finishing each assignment.

Last but not least, I still need to improve my quotes integration and summarizing skills. Although we have been practicing throughout this quarter, I still have difficulty in choosing accurate words and omitting the needless sentence. Also, the fluency between quotes and contexts is the area that I still need to work on. In many times, I have chosen good quotes to support my context, yet the quotes sometimes interrupt the smoothness of the paragraph.