Self-Assessment Essay     

Throughout this course, my understanding and application of rhetorical strategies have evolved significantly. I have also enhanced my ability to analyze texts and refine my writing process. This class has not only provided me with valuable tools to excel in academic writing but has also prepared me for my future career as a biomedical engineer. Various projects and assignments, particularly peer reviews and the research project, have allowed me to develop essential skills such as critiquing both my own work and the work of others.. 

The peer review assignment helped me because, it gave me the initiative to expand my vocabulary and use more sophisticated rhetoric throughout my essays, which helped me to my dream of having more persuasive and eloquent English that will help me throughout my career.  This helped me in appealing to my audience, which are college students and professors and it helped me in elevating my English to the next level in any genre that I decide to write whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, the exigence that prompted the creation of that piece of literature and how to analyze the rhetorical situation. The research essay has aided me a lot in nurturing my essay writing because it allowed me to integrate multiple sources into my essay and analyze them, such as understanding the biases that each essay has and their credibility while also writing them as evidence for my essay to strengthen my topic. This would also help me in also understand if my topic had sufficient evidence and source, also whether it’s appropriate to the task that was given to me. 

The critical analysis and research essays were significant assignments because they helped me in analyzing articles and using databases to find appropriate sources for my essay. For example, during my research essay, I had to select seven appropriate sources for my topic, I was able to do so by learning about how to search for the most credible and beneficial sources. This helped me in refining my topic sentence and essay based on the sources that I was able to find throughout my database research, while also using these sources as evidence to back up and strengthen my topic sentence. While the critical analysis essay would help me in deriving with the documents I am using are credible and how to use them towards supporting my argument, this would be paramount because it would help me in my future to create academic articles that are supported by credible and important evidence that supports my thesis. Furthermore, the final assignment that would aid me throughout my journey would be the annotated bibliography which is a task that required me to collect a conglomerate of seven credible sources that contribute towards my topic. Motown and the civil rights movement was the topic, so throughout the research that was done about the author’s, publication date and if the article was peer-reviewed I was able to derive seven strong and relevant articles that would help me in my research essay.  

In addition to enhancing my research and writing abilities, this course has significantly improved my critical thinking skills. I now approach writing tasks with greater analytical rigor, whether reviewing my own work or critiquing others. I’ve become more adept at identifying weaknesses, such as inconsistencies between topic sentences and conclusions or flaws in rhetorical strategies. This ability to critically assess writing will continue to serve me well in both academic and professional contexts. Perhaps most importantly, learning how to offer constructive feedback through peer reviews has been a key development. In my future biomedical engineering career, where collaboration and feedback are crucial, the ability to both give and receive feedback graciously will be a valuable professional skill. 

Thus, throughout my time in class, I was able to become more analytical of the sources that I use to help my essay’s and can relate them to my topic effectively while also being able to understand the myriad of writing styles out there that my peers use as well and help them Improve. Overall, this class aided my ability to analyze, synthesize, cite sources and paraphrase which are important skills that will help me towards my goal of writing academic articles for my biomedical engineering major. Also, it helped me creating the talent of peer-reviewing which is an important skill throughout the STEM major which is an important skill to have in order to flourish throughout the STEM field and become successful.