Alex Montanile

Self Assessment Essay

In Writing for the social sciences, as a class we attempted to learn how writing about people and society would change our approach and ultimate result of our writing. There were goals set out at the beginning of the semester as well, and those goals were accomplished over the course of the academic semester, by completing the multitude of writing assignments given. Having to understand others by the ways they speak, act, and react has definitely influenced the type of writing done in this class, as it is not a conventional kind of writing. 

Starting with our peer interview paper, we were all assigned a classmate to gather information on in the form of an interview, and had to come to a conclusion based on the interview’s core values and  morals. Goal number one on the list states,”acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility”. This was done within the interview as written in my essay,”She was very matter of fact about her answers, and was confident and open in sharing information to accurately answer the question. These attributes also gave me more intel on assessing her values, and later the main point of the paper”. My answers to her were more choppy, as I was struggling to answer some of the questions as fast as she was. We also had basic linguistic differences, like accent,tone, and overall monolog. These factors allowed me to come to my conclusion in the paper of what my classmates’ core values are. This essay also touched upon another one of the goals from the start of the semester, number four. Number four is about engaging in the social aspects of the writing process. Reason being is quite self explanatory, considering the paper was purely social, we had to interview someone in our class, and conclude who they may be based on the information gathered. The social and collaborative aspect of writing was accomplished twice more as well. We would often have to post our drafts to a discussion board, where classmates would give feedback and constructive criticism. It was also accomplished in our transcultural essay. The transcultural essay was developed by interviewing someone from a different culture than our own, and asking about a modern issue, the one I chose to ask about was covid-19 vaccination rates among immigrants. My subject was a first generation American citizen of a family that emigrated from Senegal. “She said they do not trust a government that threatens to deport them, and also simply do not know what to believe stating,’my parents would get these memes, these anti-vax memes circulating on WhatsApp and they would actually believe it’ “. This is an excerpt from the essay/interview, that sheds light on the ongoing issue, and the social aspect again, evidently being the interview.

A field observation paper was also required for the course, where we were instructed to study and observe an online community of our choice in order to develop an argument. I chose the online car community, and my stance was that the internet has had a massive influence upon the automobile industry. Goal number six is about “formulating and articulating a stance through our writing”. This is clearly done so throughout the paper, especially in the conclusion,”In essence, social media has a huge influence over the car community. Considering the car community has such a large following online, the influence on the real life car community,market,etc, was bound to be big as well”. This is very evidently a stance on the topic chosen, and is articulated directly. Goals 7 and 8 are both about source usage. Seven being about using multiple different sources(accomplished in this same paper, as there were 3 sources used), and eight being about integrating the sources into the paper(using the source information). This was done in the fashion of amplifying the points of my sources, and molding it to the points I was trying to make. For example, one source was about car culture in America and its history. I used that source to back my claims about how important the vehicles are to the country, and why the online community could have such an influence, as it is already a large community, and expanding it online adds to that community so much more.

From the experience of this class I feel I have a couple takeaways when relating to writing. The most important one for me is that writing does not have to be so analytical, and can be more descriptive. Schooling since we are 5 years of age teaches us to write in only an analytical way, whereas this class encourages writing from one’s perspective. Perspective does not have to hold any truth or fact to it. In this way writing can share people’s own individual ideas and points of view, which is massively important as we as a society need individual thinking to create and sculpt. 

My goals for the semester read something like understanding and taking on the role of a social scientist, and understanding how to write about my findings. I would say I accomplished a part of that goal, but feel it was lackluster. This would be due to the restrictions set upon the class because of covid-19 and the school not being fully open. This is a difficult class to experience online, as the entire premise of the class suggests being out in the real world and learning about real people and real groups of people. So I guess to an extent achieved my goal with the interviews I conducted, my field observations of people from my surrounding neighborhood, and the study of an online community. I feel I would have been able to achieve these goals in greater aptitude given more opportunity, and a non restricted classroom.

My favorite assignment throughout the semester was the transcultural assignment. Beginning with interviewing someone, allowing me to get that much closer to my initial goal, and finishing with an essay on the experience, this assignment was the most well rounded of them all. I enjoyed the idea of interviewing someone of a completely different culture than that of mine, and picking out the modern political issue to ask about. It was nice to be able to compare our drastic differences, and still at the end prove,”Even with our opposite cultures, we both look to the facts when it comes to societal problems like this. She said that if someone wasn’t vaccinated, she feels they do not have everyone else’s best interest in mind while she does, (an answer that got a bit of a rise out of her). I feel the same way…..In essence, our cultures had an impact on who we are, but did not deter us from developing similar world views”. All around, the assignment had a good meaning to it, showing that yes we are all different(some more than others), but it does not impede on our ability to think and agree.

Personally my favorite part of the class was the actual writing of the papers. I also did not mind the information gathering portions as well, as they can be fun and interesting. Something I would change is either eliminating reflections, as we have just written the paper, and I feel a reflection is redundant and busy work. Or I would change the requirements for commenting on the work of others, as I do not enjoy critiquing someone’s brain child, they had a vision for what they wanted their work to look like, and I do not like coming along and pointing out its flaws.

Essentially, I was able to learn most of the course goals, somewhat accomplish my own goals, and learn something along the way. Writing for the social sciences was an experience, and I am glad having experienced it.