Core Value 1. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

This semester was a roller coaster ride in which I set out to argue that steroids belonged in the MLB. In collaboration with Professor Hodges, I went from an argument that steroids had negligible effects on performance to steroids having an overwhelming impact on player performance. For this reason, the MLB should regulate the safe use of steroids to promote a more exciting game. The collaboration and exploration it took for me to change my thesis but successfully provide evidence is present in my annotated bibliography. My annotated bibliography is a comprehensive list of the essential sources I used to formulate my arguments; however, there were impactful sources that I couldn’t fit into my 15-source bibliography. This course provided the challenge to think counterintuitively and argue what we wouldn’t usually.

Core Value 2. My work demonstrates that I read critically and placed texts into conversations to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

An essential part of our research and overall final paper was gaining credible sources to support our argument and using those sources and quotes conversationally. This way of thinking was a never experience for me; in high school, we thought the opposite when writing a research paper. We’re all told to pull direct quotes and then translate the passages into our own words to support the argument. My research paper demonstrates the conversation of my stance with various communities. The Needle of Success is the compilation of my three short views into a long yet easily readable piece. Not only does my paper speak to the MLB and its fans, but it speaks power to the high school sports community and sports in general arguing over steroid use and player performance. 

Core Value 3. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my writing and other texts and visual arguments.

Our visual rhetoric assignment is the perfect example of me practicing the third core value. There’s no doubt that until I started rewrites on my short arguments, my visual rhetoric assignment was my best-written assignment. During this assignment, I watched a video without audio and closely analyzed the purpose of the video and its intended audience. The video I watched spoke to fathers and urged them to spend time with their daughters. The video portrayed a father-daughter bond, as we typically jump to a father-son or mother-daughter stereotype. Life is too short, and the Ad Council preached that we all must value this time on Earth. We must acknowledge the importance of family and the role a stable, healthy family can have in our life.

Core Value 4: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my ideas and interpretations.

I lean toward my definition argument when I locate, evaluate, and incorporate evidence to support my ideas. My definition argument went from being my worst piece to one of my best. This jump in grading was only possible with me applying core value four. At first, my definition piece was a melding pot of unclear arguments half-haphazardly thrown together with no true statement. I realized what my paper lacked when I sat with Professor Hodges’s critiques. I evaluated my work and the evidence within to rework my thesis entirely. To come to a counterintuitive idea that the MLB needs to delete their current drug policies and reform to a policy that allows players to take steroids in a safe, controlled, regulated way to avoid the black market that steroids currently represent. 

Core Value 5. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citations.

We approached citations in this class compared to most writing courses I have previously taken. Our goal in this class was to provide enough in-text material that gives credit to our source without chunking our paper with parenthesis and many distracting citations. My research paper is a perfect example of appropriately crediting our sources while keeping the piece conversational. My research paper takes the combination of my three short arguments. It combines them into a carefully crafted conversation with my audience that credits my sources while arguing my thesis and ideas. I will take the citation format I learned in Professor Hodges’ class and use it with my writing pieces from this point forward.