Reflection on Project 1

In this post I will answer the following questions about writing the QRG:

• What challenges did you face during the Quick Reference Guide project and how did you deal with them?
• What successes did you experience on the project and how did they happen?
• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most effective for your project? Why?
• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find were not effective for your project? Why?
• How was the writing process for this project similar to other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?
• How was the writing process for this project different from other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?
• Would any of the skills you practiced for this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?

Some of the main challenges that I faced were in the initial stages of planning. For me, the hardest part of any writing project is coming up with and narrowing an idea that I feel excited about. Once I find that it's not hard for me to move forward with the actual writing and production. I am pretty happy with my final product, especially the information that I found about McCain's and Flake's campaign financing through Rio Tinto. It's always exciting for me to dig up that kind of dirt and be able to use it in a project. 

In terms of design choices, I think that using large photos to completely break up the text was effective. I also feel like I did a pretty good job of having a conversational tone. The writing process was pretty similar for this project to other school writing assignments, but more drawn out. When I'm left up to my own time schedule for writing I do much more of the planning and preparing as I'm writing, rather than beforehand. I think that the more controlled process of this project forced me to do more planning before starting writing, which might produce more consistently good work. This strategy could be useful in future coursework. I want to do some more experimentation with it to see if it increases or decreases the amount of time that I spend on school projects. 

Webb, Michaela. "Rogue River Reflection" 2014

Reflection: I read Austin and Mathias's posts. It was interesting to see how Mathias's view on sports journalism changed throughout the project. He said that writing about a controversy in the sports world made him realize that it's all just people getting really worked up over nothing. I have to say that I agree with this opinion. I have a hard time understanding how people get so involved in watching sports and rooting for teams.