Transitioning to ENG 1121, I have always thought of myself as a strong writer. The skills I’ve learned from Eng1101 translated over into this course, this allowed me to become more comfortable and confident when writing. I was always good at being able to express my thoughts and being able to use proper techniques in my writing. Throughout the semester, I had the opportunity to complete assignments that allowed me to write about topics of my choice. I truly enjoyed this flexibility because it allowed me to write about things that I have a passion for or perhaps a very strong interest in. In the process of completing the three-unit assignments, this course has forced me to place a great emphasis on realizing the importance of identifying or being mindful of my audience. Being aware of this has allowed me to craft my writing in order to meet the needs of my audience. In doing so, I was able to practice and enhance my previous writing skills. However, I think that taking into account my possible audience was what stood out to me the most this entire semester.
My very first unit assignment in this course is what started to get me to realize the importance of my audience. I realized that knowing the audience helps you to make decisions about what information you should and shouldn’t include, how you should arrange that information, and what kind of word choices will be necessary for the reader to understand what you are presenting or perhaps the point you are getting across. It also influences the tone and structure of the writing piece. I noticed that to develop and present an effective argument, I needed to be able to appeal to and address my audience. This was the case in the Portrait of word assignment in which I was forced to focus on a particular word or phrase or bit of jargon that is at the heart of my discourse gym community. I had to take into account that my audience were readers that were mostly outsiders from this community. Knowing this caused me to be very selective and considerate about my word choice and methods used when explaining the importance of a word while teaching the audience about my discourse community.

In my Portrait of a Word, I bring up the acronym PR. In my attempt to explain the significance and specialty of a PR, I wrote “I remember when I hit a PR on the bench press with 225lbs for 10 reps. I felt like my soul was dancing, and as if the sun was kissing my cheeks. I would constantly brag about it to my friends.” My use of figurative language and storytelling allowed my audience to grasp or perhaps get an idea of the feelings one may get in my discourse community when hitting a PR. Then, I write that “hitting a PR is one of the things that shows the sense of belonging in a gym/fitness community. The reason for this is that we can comprehend the emotions that our body feels when we see results for our hard effort.” Here, I am able to utilize my transition skills in order to make a smooth connection between the term, the actual behavior, or feelings that tie the community together.
Had I not used a combination of the writing techniques, my audience would most likely have a less understanding of the significance and uniqueness of the acronym PR. In contrast, it wouldn’t be necessary for me to utilize these strategies if an audience member happened to be a part of my discourse community since he/she would be familiar with the significance of PR.

I was able to deliver my knowledge about the importance of my audience to my favorite assignment in this course, The Feature Article. I deemed this to be my favorite assignment because I got to write about fitness, which is a topic that I have a strong passion for; this caused me to be quite comfortable and have several ideas on what to write about. When writing this assignment, I was excited to the point that I ended up writing a lot of my thoughts out on the paper. Upon finishing the assignment and reading it over, I came to the realization that I provided a lot of information about my topic. I noticed that depending on my audience group, some may not be willing to read the entire paper and remain interested. Someone who has a passion for fitness may be wanting to digest all of the content on the paper, whereas someone who has no passion for the subject may not be willing to do the same. To fix this, when completing my revision, I removed some pieces of information that I deemed to be unnecessary. This caused the likelihood of a variety of my audience to be willing to read my entire paper.

After completing all of my unit assignments in this course, I found that getting feedback on my written work was important because it helped me better my writing. The feedback that I received, especially from an experienced grader and reader, helped me recognize my own strengths and weaknesses as a writer, what’s going good and bad in my writing, and what improvements I could possibly make. The feedback allowed me to identify where I need to focus my attention. Before asking for feedback, I asked myself questions: Am I failing to spot key issues? Are my intentions clear towards my audience? Would my audience understand better if I did this instead? Or how may my audience interpret my writing much differently than I do? Whatever it might be, feedback helped me isolate the faults in my writing. I utilized the comments I received by making the proper adjustments in my writing. Also, reading comments about what I did well in my writing and about possible suggestions helped me brainstorm more ideas.

In my Portrait of Word, Professor Blain left comments about the parts in my writing that were terrific and parts that didn’t make much sense. She wrote a comment that read “This is a terrific draft! You do a wonderful job of showing the language of the gym–and specifically “How many sets do you have left?” This positive comment was encouraging and helpful since it pointed out my strengths. The professor also provided me with a long list of possible suggestions. The suggestions she gave me allowed me to successfully revise my work by knowing what to keep, change, and reword. Due to her pointing out my strengths and providing me with effective suggestions, I was able to make a connection with PRs and sets when I revised my work. Ultimately, the feedback did nothing but assist me and develop or better my writing strategies.

This semester has allowed me to realize and focus on how important it is to be aware of or consider my audience when writing. Once you know who you are writing to or for, you can begin to consider the best way to address your audience and customize the paper. The flexibility of being able to choose topics of my choice has truly allowed me to comfortably sharpen my previous writing skills and practice taking my audience group into account in my writing. The feedback I receive from my readers allowed me to make great progress in my writing, since I end up knowing what to work on as a writer. In the future, I plan to pay more attention to my audience and to how my audience impacts the choices I make in my writing. I look forward to sharpening and utilizing what I’ve learned in this course when writing in my future classes.