Introduction
This semester has been instrumental in developing my writing, critical, and analytical skills. I have tackled several assignments across the semester, which gave me an opportunity to intrinsically display my creative and critical writing skills. This reflective treatise will review my performance in the Graduation Day, Saudi Women Rights, and the Common Misconceptions about Arabic Culture assignments. These assignments are projects one and two, respectively. The third project was a group assignment.
The Graduation Day: Assignment 1
The Graduation Day assignment was the most exciting project I did this semester. Basically, this assignment involved a description of a day in remembering. I chose the graduation day, which was very special to me. I had to recollect the events of the day in a rough draft and review the chronological pattern of occurrence for my paper to make sense and embrace the basics of a well-written essay. Upon finishing the rough draft, which consisted of over thirty events, I decided to narrow down these occurrences in the second draft and introduce the aspect of flow and sentence connectivity.
The second draft was fair enough but had several sections, which did not flow with my initial writing style. I had to edit the second draft. Since a properly written paper requires creative ingenuity, I had to write the final copy, which was better arranged and nicely presented. Despite the constraint of time, I was in a position to create an A-grade paper, as was confirmed by the marks I was awarded. I realized that the main challenge of writing a quality paper on an ordinary topic is conflicting thoughts since the entire information is out of personal creation.
Saudi Women Rights: Assignment 2
The Saudi Women Rights project was the most challenging assignment since it demanded formal research and scientific reporting. This assignment required an explanation of an issue through evidence based research. Before commencing this report, I had to draw a research timeline and a literature review. The article I found the most interesting in the research writing was the previous research by Mango on the state of the rights of women in Saudi Arabia.
I divided the research paper into four parts. These parts are the individual, communal, social, and institutional elements of women’s rights. The most exciting part of this essay is how I skillfully incorporated my examples, as was also done by Mango. For instance, I mentioned that older women are happy with the way things are in Saudi Arabia and feel that their well-being is protected by the current laws.
I was generally intimidated by the complexity of the research topic and the analytical approach adopted by Mango. Doing scientific research, I had to further my understanding of using this form of research by referring to the class notes and the library. The challenges involved in collecting the relevant information alone made writing this assignment a gruesome experience. However, I was able to arrange the major and minor premises to create a sensible report.
The Group assignment: Assignment 3
Group assignments are often complicated because each member of the group has a different writing style and flow of ideas. Despite these differences, sharing a common goal makes the group experience enjoyable. In the group assignment, I was tasked with the responsibility of creating the research outline for the Common Misconceptions about the Arabic Culture topic. In order to draw a narrow and convincing design, I had to do a lot of secondary research on the Arabic world from culture, food, music, religion to the general perceptions. I proceeded to review the common perceptions of the western world on the culture, religion, politics, and economy of the Middle East. After that, I narrowed down my research to economic, political, social issues in order to make the presentation more focused and constructive.
The most challenging part in the compilation of the work done in a group was the editing and selection of information to include in the final copy. There was a lot of information, which had to be summarized in ten slides. At the same time, the presentation was supposed to be as short and exciting as possible to ensure that the target audience does not lose concentration.
Since this was a group assignment, I must admit that the research process was restrictive because each member was limited to doing a portion of the paper. In the end, we presented a well researched and carefully written paper. Unlike other groups, the clarity of our presentation was apparent because the other groups did not have questions or negative observations on our project. This was the best project for me since I benefitted from the team spirit in the group. Besides, the topic of the project was my culture.
Conclusion
I must admit that there were a series of challenges along the way as my assignments required research and creativity in the compilation. However, being a creative and flexible person, I was able to improve my writing skills and minimize the research challenges. In fact, I can authoritatively describe my last assignment as a mature piece of literature consisting of well researched, properly written, and clean paper since the topic was about my culture.