Semester Reflection (General)

Reflection
This semester sure has been a long and difficult one when discussing my writing and the the changes that it has gone through mainly due to your teaching.  Before this semester I felt as though my writing was very much polished and that I need little to critiquing.  I had my reasons for believing so, but those didn’t really matter.  That snobbish demeanor that I carried myself would soon be destroyed as I received my grade from my first paper.  At first a denounced most of your comments, but then with the help of some friends I began to embrace them which would in turn lead to me becoming a better writer.  The improvement that I experienced can be seen throughout the spectrum of my writing from  they way in which I structure my sentences to the thought process that go through before I write my papers.  Seeing how you were critical to my papers led to me being critical of my own work.  I began to realize and take note of the areas in which my work need improvement.  Instead of just praising my writing and stroking my ego in the reckless manner that I had previously been doing, I began to write my papers then go through and read them and even compare them to scholarly work  of the same format and compare it to those.  That process alone led to my writing being improved drastically.  Although I no longer stroke my ego I did recognize my strengths and in recognizing them I began to better utilize them so that I could improve my writing in that manner.  For example if I noticed that my word use was exceptionally well I would make sure to structure my sentences and papers in a format that complimented these strengths.  Where I seen strengths I also recognized weaknesses.  For example my ability to utilize words sometimes led me to over structure my sentences which would cause them to be run-ons. Recognizing these weaknesses were good things though because it ultimately led to me fixing the problem, whether it was during the peer review or after.  Needless to say that by going through all of that I learned a lot.  I guess we could attribute that to your teaching methods, because without you implementing things such as peer review I may have never caught many of the mistakes that I did.  Often times I found that to avoid these mistakes a simple altercation of my writing process would suffice so thats would I did.  My writing process of old would consist of my grabbing my laptop  and just writing from the top of my head.  I would have no kind of brainstorming process what so ever.  For  blogging or other kind of recreational writing this method is fine. But when writing a paper for academic purposes it often caused my papers to be subpar.  These subpar papers would often result in subpar grades, in which I am not accustomed to nor do I want to be.  So to fix this problem I would began to practice a very elaborate writing process. This process would involve three different major components.  These components were the pre-write, rough draft, then revision.
During the pre-write stage I would set my purpose for writing. Whether it was to be a cause/effect or a compare/contrast was often a topic of consideration.  However most of the time this was easy to diagnose because you would just outright tell us what it was supposed to be (Thanks for that).  I would then go onto identify my audience.  This step was especially important because who you writing is meant to address or to be read by means a lot.  Especially when you are writing about sensitive and or controversial subjects.  You would also often tell us who our audience was so that we could effectively write papers that correctly addressed that audience that it was supposed to address.  For example our paper that was to be published in the class news paper was our peers and even though we are in the college environment it gave us a little room to be a little less technical.  I exemplified this in my article about preemptive war as I repeatedly addressed the people of the United States.  The next step that I would take was to limit my topic.  You often partially limited our topics by giving  us a certain genre we had to remain within. Such as our first essay when our assignment  was to tell of our lives as writers.  In that situation you basically chose the topic for us so I could skip this step completely, but with assignments such as our second writing assignment you let us choose what we were to write about so as long as it stayed within the spectrum provided by you.  The next step I would go to would be to think of a thesis.  This step was extremely vital to my writing process because the thesis that I provided would provide the basis to my entire paper by setting the tone of what I was going to talk about within it.  To support this thesis I would then go on to brainstorm various details that related and supported the thesis that I previously brainstormed.  I would often try to make sure that the I had at least 6 supporting details before I moved on to the next step.  After I had six supporting details I would then go on to narrow it down to the four which I believed to be the most prevalent, and of course supporting to my thesis. With a thesis and four strong supporting ideas I would then set out to logically arrange these ideas in a format in which would allow my paper to flow correctly.  This was basically a detailed version of an outline, because I would go on to write complete paragraphs for the supporting details.  I would then go on to gather more information on my topic if it were one like essay number two, and I would of course document my sources.
The next stage of my writing would be the rough draft stage.  Taking a look at my old writing process its obvious that this is the stage in which I often skipped ahead to, because at this point is when I began the actual writing.  Unlike with my old writing process this stage would  commence  smoothly.  Primarily due to the fact that not only did I have my information, but I also had my paper structured and my thesis clear stated.  So I would just end up copying down what I already had on my outline and feeling in the blanks and adding details where they were needed.
The next stage of my writing would be the revision stage.  I actually had two revision stages, sometimes up to as many as five of them.
My first revision stage would often happen immediately following the completion of my paper.  I would go back and read my entire paper and find errors and correct them.  I would then wait an additional day, assuming I didn’t wait to the last second to complete the assignment, and review my paper once again.  Somewhere during the time that I am not reviewing my paper I would often give it to one maybe two of my roommates to review and critique to their liking.  I would take a look into their suggestions and maybe change a few things.
My second revision stage often took place following the peer-reviews that we had in class.  I would get my peers comments on my paper and look into their suggestions sometimes heeding them and others times not giving them second thought if I felt that they were not appropriate.  I would then go on to write my final draft.  While doing so I would make sure that my thesis statement is clear and well stated in a manner that makes it easy to understand.  I would attempt to rethink my ideas from a different view point, and maybe rearrange them if thats what I seen fit.  All in an attempt to make them better support my thesis of course.  I would re-read every sentence that I wrote as to check for unity and coherence in my writing.  I would make sure that my paragraphs fit the paper and gave good examples and details.  If needed I would even research further and gather more information to support my thesis as I did in my “Alternative Medicine” paper.  I would double check all of my facts and read my paper for punctuation and grammatical errors to finish it up.
I would then turn my paper in the next class and cross my fingers and hope that you grade my paper after consuming multiple glasses of wine.
Throughout all of my classes that I have had this semester I feel like this one here will be the most beneficial to my career.  I plan on being a lawyer, and its well known that lawyers must be able to read and write effectively.  This class exercised my writing abilities more than any other english course I have ever taken has, and for that I’m thankful. Because now I know that the confidence in which I have in my writing is more than just an over inflated ego. Its a confidence in knowing that my abilities as a writer has been tested, and its passed.

Pre-Emptive Ware (First Strike War)

Preemptive War

About six years ago, in a speech at West Point, President Bush spoke of his doctrine of pre-emption also known as preemptive war.  He stated that “The war on terror will not be won on the defensive,” and that “We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act.”(Hodge 418).  He did not disappoint considering that only 10 months after giving that speech President Bush sent U.S. troops to dethrone Saddam Hussein. After less then 2 months after the first bombs were dropped Bush announced that the mission had been accomplished”.
Today, the doctrine of preemption has fallen on from grace.  The supporters of the doctrine are held significantly less then vindicated. The Iraq war and its aftermath have ultimately failed to accomplish its goals.   The problems of our occupation over the last year make it highly unlikely that preemption will be utilized again any time soon, and for good reason.
Preemptive war is defined as an attempt to repel or misperceived inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending (allegedly unavoidable) war before that threat materializes.  That very same definition explains why preemptive war is contradictory to its goals.  Reason being is because by utilizing any form of military action a nation is actually just compounding upon the very same problems in which led to the dis-agreement in the first place.  These military actions in many cases lead to the actual war itself. because by the usage of preemptive war a nation is performing an act of aggression in which leaves the other country no choice but to defend itself.  When we think of preemptive war the Iraq war often comes to mind.  We think of conflicts in which we were on the delivering end of the preemptive war.  This often falsely leads us into believing it was justified, because as Americans that is what we are supposed to feel.  However, when we take a look into situations in which we were on the receiving end our outlooks on preemptive war changes.
One of the situations in which we were on the receiving end was Pearl Harbor.  The average Japanese citizen from that time would have most likely say that they were in fact justified in launching a preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor.  We were cutting of their oil supply, and they believe that for them to survive as a nation that would have to launch a preemptive strike on us.  The majority of the American people at that time would have agreed that up until Pearl Harbor a war with Japan was “avoidable”.  Despite what we felt, the Japanese felt that the war was “unavoidable” so they launched a preemptive strike.  So basically, in a conflict in which a nation launches a preemptive strike it doesn’t even matter whether or not the receiving nation felt the war was “unavoidable”. Because when it comes to preemptive war it only takes one nation to “tango”, and that one is the nation whom sends their missiles first.  Here in lies the problem with preemptive war.
The attack on Pearl Harbor happened almost seventy years ago, so when speaking about a preemptive war and its effect on our society today it may seem irrelevant to some of us.  A situation in which preemptive war was used in which we all felt the fall out from was the 9/11 Attacks.  At first thought many people would say that it was not a preemptive strike, and that it was clear cut terrorism.  However, that is looking at it from our point-of-view while neglecting that of the attackers.  What we call terrorism they call “Jihad” or as the Qur’an describes it: a war in the way of god, directed towards Satan’s inducements, aspects of one’s own self, or against a visible enemy.  In this case we are the visible enemy of a group of people who believe that a war with us has been foretold in a religious book that is centuries old. Of course they believe that the war is unavoidable, so to get the upper hand they launched a preemptive strike.
Its easy for people to believe that preemptive war is justified, especially when it has no direct affects upon them.  However, when past events that we witnessed are taken in to account, such as 9/11, then opinions suddenly start to change.  We begin to realize that despite which “end” of the preemptive war tactics you are on it is unjust and kills any hope for peace being achieved.  Especially in cases in which a nation attacks another nation without warning, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor.  If we take a simple look at the events which transpired during the Cuban Missile crisis, we began to realize that no war is “unavoidable” and peace can be achieved through diplomatic methods.

Works Cited (MLA):

Hodge, Carl, and Cathal Nolan. U.S. Presidents and Foreign Policy: From 1789     to the Present. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO,  Incorporated, 2006.