Unit 2 Reflection

 

Unit 2 Reflection 

Throughout my research, I looked at the difference between having too much homework and lacking proper time management skills, and which of these factors played the most significant role. This was an important topic for me because in the past, and sometimes now, I struggled with time management. I also have a demanding course load that I feel like takes up a lot of hours from my week. Some days it feels like it is never ending, but through my research, I have found new strategies on how to organize time spent on homework. I chose the audience for this project based on who I thought was most relevant to the topic. College students often struggle with managing time for social interactions, classwork, and extracurriculars, so I wanted to understand more about why this happens. Before my research, I assumed that it was mainly the quantity of work that was assigned that was the primary cause of stress. However, as I dived deeper into my topic, I found that time management plays a great role in the amount of stress caused by daily assignments.  As a sophomore in college, I understand the coursework load and the time management aspect, and I hope to use my peers as well as other sources to come to a conclusion on my inquiry. I used less formal language and quotes to feel more in touch with my audience. I also used pathos through my primary interview, which looked at the students' personal feelings about their workload. I also used specific quotes from my sources with personal accounts in order to make my audience feel more connected to my writing. In addition to this, I have ethos as I am an undergraduate college student who has a lot of homework daily. Lastly, I used logos through my different statistics and information about specific case studies to solidify my argument. An instance of this is “they used a sample group of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing schools in California.” I challenged myself in researching this piece by collecting my own data through surveys and interviews rather than just finding information on Google. I feel like the consensus about workloads in school is that teachers need to be mindful of their students' well-being; on the other hand, students need to be pushed in order to grow. There is a lot of high-quality research on the topic of time management, but not as many personal accounts from people. There is a lot of data collected, but that cannot fully account for the mental strain caused by a lack of balance. Some further research that needs to be done is what can be done to help students either find more time management skills or manage their stress. It would also be important to look at how students in low-income schools feel about their schoolwork and what could be done to help them. My primary research looks at personal accounts from students from the university I go to and what they believe will help them succeed. My research contributes to helping find solutions to make college students feel good about their learning. I was successful in my pitch argument because I had numerous students from college take it. I also used it as one of my primary sources for my overall research. I got a lot of data through the Google survey explaining how people felt about their schoolwork based on their major and screen time. This was important because it gave me first-hand account data on the mindset of many students with varying majors and different views of their coursework. I followed up by talking to the students and hearing their opinions and viewpoints on my proposal. I could use these strategies in how to research in the future, as well as how to collect data. I found it very helpful to look for my own data and speak to people in person rather than just looking at it through the screen. I like doing fieldwork and being hands on with my learning. More specifically, I will take with me the rhetorical strategies that I employed in order to solidify my argument. I liked that this research allowed me to look closely at a topic that I was interested in and have experience with. I like learning new things about my peers in addition to more strategies to manage my time. Overall, in the future, I hope to conduct more research and learn new strategies on how to collect primary sources for my research.