Jeremy Bogen

11/24/2025

Professor Orwig

FIQWS Topic

Throughout the course of the semester, class time with my professors has taught me a lot about writing and literature. These writing strategies I have learned have improved my writing over the course of the semester. These lessons have especially been helpful during my time writing the research essay. I learned various things such as learning to integrate writing strategies and sources in my research essay, learning writing strategies such as logos, ethos, and pathos, the idea of a standard language myth, and just improving on writing strategies in general such as transitioning, formatting, and proofreading. But in this essay, I will be going over my journey with each claim.

Before college, I still remember how I used sources in class. You’d simply surround a quote from a text in quotation marks and that would be it. Sure you’d have to write the page number down as well, but for 4 years that’s how I, and everyone I my school were taught to do it. But in college, I learned that there was much more to in-text citation then I originally thought. I learned how to annotate and share sources in proper format through the use of my annotated bibliography, as well as a new format for in-text citation. You would put in parentheses after the quote, the last name of the author(s) and page number separated by a comma. I also learned new citation terminology such as “et al” which basically means “and others” and should only be used if a text has 3 or more authors. Although it isn’t a huge change from how I used to cite my sources, it completely changed my way of thinking when using quotes in writing assignments. Overall, this new way of in-text citation taught me a new approach for implementing research in my writing assignments.

During class I also learned a couple of handy literature strategies. One of these strategies was the three writing techniques, logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos meant an appeal to logic, in the form of numbers and statistics. Ethos meant an appeal to credibility, such as a famous athlete or professional in a specific field in a commercial. And pathos meant the appeal to emotion through diction and imagery. In class, we went over some examples of the three strategies in play by watching some ads. A group I was in watched a soccer ad promoting famous chip brands such as Doritos, lays, and Fritos. But in the ad we watched there was a famous soccer player promoting these chips and hyping up the game. This is obviously a common tactic used in ads to promote their product. People see a famous soccer player talking about these chips, and they’re gonna want to have a bag as well. We watched another ad about gatorade, and in the ad a man is trying to buy gatorade at a store, but the cashier tells him he isn’t athletic enough to buy one. Then a famous athlete shows us and smacks it out of his hand. There it is again; a famous athlete. People see this athlete and want to buy the product. Not only did this lesson expose common tropes used in ads, but allowed me to use them as well. I used pathos in my research essay in the form of targeted questions. Just something for the reader to keep their mind on.

I also learned about the concept of a standard language during the semester. We read multiple texts about the standard language myth in class and how it can both benefit and hinder language speakers. People would feel more inferior to others because of their version of English speaking (accents or slang), and may lose opportunities in life because of their way of speaking. On the contrary, people who speak standard English are seen as formal and respectful (not to say they aren’t) and therefore they would most likely be eligible for better opportunities such as a higher education or a better job. The concept of a standard language also promotes the idea of acting like someone you’re not. Even in writing people write so formal it just seems boring and looks like a robot generated script. A writers voice is unique to them and should be used in writing AND speaking, and it’s one of the only ways your writing can be distinguished from others. People don’t want to read lifeless, toneless writing, they want to read a laid back type of essay that actually sounds like a human is writing it. This is the biggest takeaway I’ve had from this semester, that your voice actually matters in writing.

Before college I was an amateur writer. And I still am even in college. But at least I’m an amateur that knows a thing or two about writing thanks to this class. And thanks to this class, I have been able to improve on existing writing techniques such as building on topics, proper formatting, and proofreading. Although I learned about MLA format in high school, it was nice to get a refresher on it in college. And using our color coded essay assignment, I was able to find a good way to analyze the contents of an essay to see what you excel in or lack. Building on topics was pretty difficult for me though. Writing a lot used to get me exhausted, and I used to constantly take breaks in between, that gradually turned into daydreams and laziness. Now, I can go for a while writing about topics by branching off into new ones (as you can tell from this essay.)

All-in-all, the FIQWS topic AND writing sections have taught me a great deal throughout the semester when it comes to writing. And I hope there are many more lessons like this to come in future writing classes.