I chose this essay to showcase because I have MLA cited six great sources. This writing piece was a multimodal essay, so I included a lot of elements from different sources to support the multimodal element of the writing. These citations also incorporate a variety of sources including photos, websites, maps, videos, and an essay. To cite my sources, I used the “Little Seagull” book because it has instructions on how to cite all of the sources you can think of. In high school, we basically would cite only websites using Easybib or Bibme, so I never learned the proper way. This semester in English 110 is when I really learned about how important citations really are and how to actually pull information from a website and make my own citation. Not only did I learn how to cite sources on my own, but I have also learned how to cite TED Talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, images, maps, essays, and journal articles from a book.
I also learned how to do in-text citations as well, which played a prominent role in the third prompt and it helped me to better converse with the authors. For example, instead of saying “Lehrer said…” and leaving it at a dead-end, I write “By heeding the wisdom of the arts, science can gain the kinds of new insights and perspectives that are the seeds of scientific progress” (Lehrer 2). Art is way more intelligent than one can assume because before science was born, art existed.” I don’t necessarily state that the author said it, but I just use the intext citation and then I tie it into my argument.
I also chose this writing piece to demonstrate how I used editing and revising to make my essay the way it is. There is a lot going on in this essay because of the multimodal aspect, so I had to spend a lot of time editing it and rereading it. My favorite strategy to use to edit any form of writing is to read it out loud. Doing it this way can allow you to catch any slips or to see how well the writing flows. I believe that this essay, out of all the other essays I’ve written in English 110, has the best paragraph flow and the points are all interconnected.
