Outcome 2: Over the past semester, I have increased my ability to acquire key passages within written works such as essays, articles, and scholarly journals. Within these passages, my capacity to find key words and key phrases that contribute to the author’s overall argument, as well as to look for aspects of the author’s work to contribute to my own argument, has steadily improved. Additionally, I feel through the learning of counterarguments and in crafting written work with both defense of and critique of presented ideas, I more readily look to not only gain information from reading and analyzing, but also challenge many points of views. Some of my works where I was able to effectively portray these skills were my Frankenstein paper proposal and many of my Blog Posts, specifically 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8.

My Frankenstein paper proposal, specifically the annotated bibliography, reflected both my most recent and most skilled work of synthesizing material and creating a summary from what was presented in other works of writing. For example, in crafting my annotation for the article Monstrosity, Suffering, Subjectivity, and Sympathetic Community in Frankenstein and “The Structure of Torture’”, I immediately began by referencing and defining the notion of “individual subjectivity”, what I felt was the author’s key point. I then progressed its meaning by explaining this concept more thoroughly, mentioning its relationship to the book and how this concept is featured in the creature’s life. This, in turn, created a more understandable and complete idea of the author’s main points.

An example of my ability to challenge other people’s ideas was presented in Blog Post 1, in which we had to create both an argument and a counterargument for the use of surveillance technology in response to the “Eye in the Sky” podcast. By taking an unbiased stance on the issue and thoughtfully assessing the pros and cons to both sides, I was able to craft to effective arguments for each perspective.