Reflection Essay

Ling-Li (Lily) Yen

Writing 39B Final Draft

Professor Harrison

29 August 2014

Reflection Essay

The theme of writing 39B is detective genre and focused on the story of Sherlock Holmes that is created by Conan Doyle. During the first half of the class, I have learned the history and the development of detective genre through reading articles and wiki group project. After reading massive amount of analytic texts from different scholars; such as, Panek and Dove, I learned that the genre has strict formula and elements created by Conan Doyle. Doyle was able to successfully design and develop the genre not only because of his outstanding writing skills but also the perfect historical background he was born in. During Victorian era, Industrial Revolution was on its climax, which caused the increase of crime rate and technological devices, intriguing curiosity in crime and unknown areas. Moreover, although detective genre included many creative plots and mystery cases, they all based on one constant pattern and qualities. Before I have learned the four qualities and formula of detective genre, I was curious about why the show length of each case only take up 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. In the last five weeks, the class focused on the cinematic and characteristic adaptation that make detective genre become one of the most popular genres in the 21st century. During last few weeks, I have learned techniques of analyzing movie scenes through writing forum each week after watch each show. 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 rarely read novels. 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 designed to adapt the social background in modern days. Through close observation, audience can know the custom and moral standards in nowadays. Despite the intensive reading amount in first four weeks, these scholarly analytical texts and wiki projects both have expanded my understanding toward the genre that I have always loved.

After learning the basic information and historical background of the detective genre, I am able to organize my thoughts and arguments into essays such as literature review and rhetorical analysis. I am more interested in rhetorical analysis because I have more interest the topic of cinematic technique. Therefore, I fully revised my rhetorical analysis essay. The strength of this paper is that I have great supporting examples, arguments and supporting details. For example, in my final draft, I wrote, “The distance of the camera shows a medium shot instead of a close-up shot to emphasize both gesture and facial expression of Dr. Watson. By showing her body language and her expression, audiences would be able to notice the anxiety of Dr. Watson.” (4). I am able to explain the emotion and the meaning that a show runner wants to deliver through his or her cinematic techniques. More importantly, I am able to closely analyze each scene instead of summarize Sherlock Holmes’ movies or TV series. The weakness of the final draft is the conclusion. Although I understand conclusion should include the rephrased thesis statement and extend the argument of the essay, I feel the conclusion is repetitive. On the other hand, I choose to revise one paragraph of literature review because I have poor organization in the essay. I have too many arguments that I want to include in the essay, yet there is not enough pages to allow me to fully explain my analysis. Although I have great thoughts and ideas, I did not write thoroughly enough which causes me to put more effort and time to revise the first draft. Nevertheless, the paragraph I choose to revise is the fifth paragraph. This paragraph explains that the impact of Industrial Revolution had in causing and bolstering the success of Conan Doyle. I choose to revise this paragraph because I want to express how important the historical background is and major events would not only affect living condition but a new genre or new literature style can come into existence as the lifestyle changes. Therefore, in order to learn or understand different literature, learning its historical background is essential.

Peer review is the best part in this online course because I am able to learn mistake from reviewing others’ drafts. When I read drafts of my classmates, I would be able to identify many contextual problems or grammatical errors that I would have be blind to. I would take notes when I review others’ draft and go back to my own draft to see if I made the same mistake they did. For example, while reviewing rhetorical analysis of my partner, I noticed that she includes large portion of summary instead of analyzing the movie scenes. Therefore, when I revised my final draft, I specifically pay attention to the percentage of my summary and analysis throughout the essay. Getting feedback from peers is also helpful to spot some errors that I have neglected; yet, I still feel I learn more from reviewing and commenting on others’ drafts.

Furthermore, through cinematic wiki page, I have learned not only communication skills but also study basic shooting techniques. For the second wiki page, our group tries 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 of time difference. 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 receive them. Although I am not in the States and in the same time zone, I initially have emailed and assigned works to each member, asking them who could do the proofreading or formatting of four pages. Luckily, my teammates are not only responsible for replying emails immediately but also willing to contribute their work as a group. Although I am not the group leader, I am willing to do more work and contribute more effort in the group. The page of MOS is created by Shaneen Lin, and Pan is created by Mansi Tyagi. Through this project, I have learned the importance of communication which not only avoids the work being done by one person but also helps the final presentation of the project.

As a Biology major student, I need to write Biology lab and Chemistry lab reports. Reports usually have limited length because scientists tries to keep them transitory and compacted. For example, a Chemistry lab report includes the explanation and details of a theory. Summarizing and quoting from Chemistry textbook is required to compose an exceptional report, supporting the validation of the experiment. Therefore, learning skills of quoting fluently and summarizing coherently is essential for Biology students.

Above all, flexibility, persistence and responsibility are three habits that I gained throughout the summer quarter. I am willing to ask for opinions from my group mates to help me improve my understanding of assignments, quality of wiki project and essay revision. Also, an online class has less interaction with professors and 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 develop the characteristic of persistence and responsibility, so I could continue to work hard until the end of the quarter. Also, flexibility is needed in order to cooperate and communicate with teammates in two group projects. A group project becomes difficult when group members cannot cooperate with each other and are unwilling to communicate. Yet, I learned how to discuss and work things out with each member. As a result, each of us can finish the work on time and have high efficiency. During last five weeks. I am out of country, so it is challenging for me to keep up with the class due to the time difference. Yet, I have made up my mind to finish well this quarter. Every time when I feel lazy to do assignment, I would remind myself the goal that I wrote down in the beginning of the quarter, which is finish each assignment on time. Although I still missed one or two assignment, I push myself further to the end. Online courses require perseverance and persistence in order to finish strong, and I did it.

Last but not least, I still need to improve my integration of quotes and summarizing skills. Although we have been practicing throughout this quarter, I still have difficulties in choosing accurate words and omitting needless sentences when I summarize an article or a story. Also, the fluency between quotes and contents is the area that I still need to work on. Many times I have chosen good quotes to support my context, yet where I insert them sometimes interrupt the smoothness of the paragraph.