Writing Project 1
Part 1: Zoom Out
From starting my college career in 2019 at Loyola Marymount University to now being two semesters away from graduation at USC, I have written a lot of academic papers. Not one piece of work has been exactly the same because I have been asked to write in multiple different genres for very different audiences and in very different types of academic languages. In addition, I have also dealt with many personal circumstances that have made my college journey anything but a smooth ride and may have pulled my mind away from the writing tasks at hand. Nevertheless, I look forward to displaying my trials and tribulations during my journey thus far and reflecting on how it has affected my development as a writer. To do this I will be thinking back to three of my past writing assignments during college and explaining my thought process from both an academic and personal standpoint.
The first paper I would like to introduce is a social justice argumentative essay from my first year writing class at Loyola Marymount University. Not only was this a required writing assignment, but it was also a very important one because it made up forty percent of our grade and was going to be the backbone of the speech we would have to give two weeks later to the entire class. This reality in addition to me being a first semester freshman gave me extreme motivation to put a lot of time and effort into this paper. I was constantly asking for my professor's advice during class and attending her office hours every week so she could read over my rough drafts. I believe feedback during those sessions helped my early development as a writer tremendously and allowed me to build a genuine relationship with my professor. My argument was that humans should start limiting the amount of meat they consume because its production was adding to the climate change process and impacting people in poverty. This type of argument allowed me to read a lot of scholarly articles throughout my research and absorb information from many experts on the meat industry, climate change, and social justice. The ironic thing about writing this paper was that I ate meat almost everyday while writing it. Nevertheless, the passion of the experts and activists I came across gave me a deeper appreciation for what they believed in and allowed me to become a more empathetic person as the writing process went on. Using these experts' scientific evidence I was able to back up both my affirmative and persuasive language throughout the entire paper. For being my first real writing experience in college, I think this assignment benefited me both as a person and a writer, making me excited to continue pushing myself in college composition. Getting a good grade didn’t hurt either.
The next writing piece from my past is vastly different from an argumentative essay. During my sophomore year (second semester at USC) my technology entrepreneurship professor tasked a group and I with writing a final executive summary for a fitness app we had been brainstorming. This assignment has been my least favorite during my college career but I think it still serves a valuable purpose in my development as a writer. During that time I was dealing with a lot of personal issues including mental health problems and imposter syndrome. These issues made it very hard for me to give my undivided attention to the assignment and especially difficult to work with the other three members of my team. Being a transfer student, dealing with imposter syndrome was a real thing I had to deal with in my first year here. It was very easy to think that I did not belong at a school with tons of talented individuals around me, especially when I began struggling in some of my classes. Then this assignment rolled around and I was paired with three other individuals who knew a lot more about the technology and application world than I did. I was tasked with writing large amounts of research on the industry and legal concerns regarding app development. With my limited background, my team often criticized and asked me to revise my share of the work throughout the duration of the writing process. I eventually mustered up the courage to ask my professor for help which ended up saving me during this assignment. He directed me towards many executive summary examples and research papers done by both app developers and start up experts. This eventually allowed me to add more concise and informative language to my writing, which was key in an executive summary. The material written by these experts not only improved my writing, but gave me the confidence to present work to my group mates which they accepted and made part of the final deliverable. Like I said, this was the least favorite assignment I have done throughout college but it still is very valuable to my development as a writer. I was able to persevere and prove to myself that it could be done, which is a skill I hadn’t yet known I needed in composition.
My third writing piece is also different from the first two and is one that I enjoyed putting together so much that it might as well have been voluntary. As a part of my Real Estate Fundamentals Class I was tasked with putting together an Offering Memorandum detailing my recommendation of a multifamily property in Los Angeles to potential investors. Part of the deliverable included in depth research on market analysis, population demographics, property location, rent comparable explanation, sales comparable explanation, and other financial value information of the property. I remember being very motivated to complete this assignment to the best of my ability because it was a core class in my major’s curriculum and I was beginning to become super passionate about real estate. Having constant communication with my professor about how I could improve my analysis was a weekly necessity throughout this process and ultimately allowed me to put my best effort forward. I was adamant that I used concise and clear language throughout the piece without sounding too desperate towards my potential investors. Learning how to write this way is something I will never forget and will be able to take with me for as long as I begin communicating with real life professionals. In terms of personal circumstances during this time, I was in my second semester back at USC after taking a gap semester and changing my major because of my personal issues mentioned above. I was in a great state mentally which allowed me to give my complete attention to the assignment without any outside distractions. The project was so important to me that I always made sure to be in a quiet place without distractions in order to give the work the undivided attention it deserved. Engaging with real estate analysis software to enforce the accuracy of my writing was also something I had never done before which gave me the ability to learn beyond composition as I wrote the memorandum. Overall, this project made me realize that I was fully committed to my line of study and gave me the sense that I belonged as a USC student.
Throughout my college career I have gone through many ups and downs which include transferring, taking a gap, changing my major, and finally feeling comfortable at this great university. Composition is the same way. There have always been ups and downs for me when it comes to writing and I believe that there always will be. What makes writing rewarding are the breakthroughs I have been able to make along the way that wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t learn from every experience, good or bad.
Part 2: Zoom Out
The paper I have chosen for this analysis was for my Urban Context for Policy and Planning class and is titled “The Future Demands of Sustainable Development on Urban Planning and Design”. This paper’s genre was assigned to be an argumentative essay with large amounts of our own research to back up the argument at hand. If I were to describe the text's language, I would say it is a very industry based vocabulary and uses a point, evidence, elaborate approach. This is done in order to make myself clear, back myself up with evidence, and then explain why it’s important. The language is also informative, cautious, and solution oriented. This was the style I chose because I wanted to persuade my audience to agree with my ideas, but not by trying to trick them. I not only wanted to impress reader’s with my knowledge of the problem, but give them the confidence that I actually had valuable research backed solutions as well. I do this throughout the paper by outlining the current problem at hand in the beginning of the paper and then moving into my arguments for certain solutions that are possible and beneficial within the context of the problem.
The first member of the audience for this paper was my professor. Being a final paper, it was our job as students to reflect on what we had learned throughout the semester and apply that to our own research and argument for sustainable development and design. This was very rewarding because the concepts my professor had been talking about made more sense when I began doing my own research, and I became excited for him to read my paper. The second set of audience members were developers anywhere that wanted to make a difference in our world and help our environment through the sustainable development and design of cities. Even if this was an imaginative audience, it gave me extra motivation to know that this was a paper that could be a building block to publishing something that professionals in this industry might want to read. I would say that this paper is not for an audience that doesn’t have any prior knowledge in the industry. This is because, as mentioned, I use a very technical vocabulary choice that pertains to urban planning and development itself.
My intention with this paper was to start by introducing how rapid urbanization has caused both environmental and economic crises in urban landscapes. Then offering that we can turn the tide by using sustainable development ideas in tune with our urban planning and urban design. After that introduction paragraph I take them through the ugly implications that will continue in our environment if something is not done about our current urban planning. I then jump into what sustainable development actually is and why it must be applied to our urban planning and design for our longevity's sake. In the next two paragraphs I deliberately explain some of the solutions and how sustainable development can actually be implemented into our urban planning and design. Before my conclusion paragraph I outline downsides of my argument but ultimately say that they do not outway the pros. The reason I wrote my paper this way is because I thought it was best to define the issue, then define the solution, then show how that solution can be implemented into our policies to rid the issue.
This text responds to urban planners that may not want to make a change due to monetary reasons or the belief that we have already gone too far in the other direction. Urban planning is constantly changing everyday and new ideas are always being introduced. Implementing these ideas have always been the biggest challenge and providing a sustainable solution for our cities is at the top of the debate board during this day and age. This paper is in response to that and was carried out with the hope that I could add my ideas to the conversation after learning about these issues for an entire semester.
A current point of view this text aligns with is the current initiative in California that gas cars will no longer be sold come 2035. This is an effort to halt the environmental crisis that urban planning also benefits too and I'm sure people in favor of that initiative would read my paper and agree with it. This paper would collide with the voices of people who don’t see the negative sides of urban sprawl or think our environment is a big issue right now. People who also don’t care what happens after they’re gone might not find it too amusing either. This paper is a true call to action by urban planners in favor of sustainable development and those who want to see their environment return to a healthy place for their kid’s generation and their kid’s kid’s generation. Readers must take action by voting for sustainable development policies to be mandated in our planning and design of cities.