In the self-reflection of the exploratory essay I analysed what mistakes I made not only on the essay itself but also in my drafts. It helped me determine the mistakes I have continued to commit since the first assignment.

Exploratory Self reflection 

The process of analysing sources from academic journal articles was complicated. I had to determine which sources were used, the type of sources used, the impact the sources have and also the effectiveness of the sources. I decided to make my exploratory essay on Andrew Sluyter article about Cattle Ranching in the 16th century in New Spain. This essay had much room for improvements, but I made sure that it accomplished its goal, for the most part. So I would like to reflect on my exploratory essay and explain to further detail the aspects that my essay accomplished and the aspects that it needs work on, for improving my writing.

​Creating the essay was difficult, but I was able to work it out by first deciding the article. I chose the article by Sluyter because it was the most interesting to me. This made it somewhat easier for me to write about and make it more interesting for my audience. In my essay, I divided/tried to explain the 3 sections with brief summaries before engaging the sources for background info. Also, my thesis statement was not as clear as I intended for the audience, but I think it was able to portrait the message I intended to give. Although I still think that I should have been more direct at times with the explanation of sources and its usefulness to the audience. In the end I was able to mostly accomplished the task I intended for the essay.

​My essay portrayed points that talked about its genre, purpose and stance in accordance to my writing. I believe my essay’s guidelines for its genre was accomplished, I didn’t get off  topic and it told an analysis of the article. In its purpose, the essay was able to accomplish some required points. However, when I had to describe how the author used his source and how effective the sources were, I struggle to explain it. I feel like this happened because I didn’t have background info and the pattern/biases that the article had, although I did fixed the best way I could, although I was not satisfied because of the way I had to explain it in each section because each I had to explain each source individually. The essay also contained my stance, which was located in mostly in the conclusion. I portrayed my position by using the information I gather from the sections of Sluyters article and my explanation of sources, which I think made it more clear for myself to explain my stance. So this is how its genre, its purpose and my stance was portrayed in my essay.

In the making of this essay, I also used CLO’s to formulate its best outcome. The first thing I did was create a outline, in which I decided to divide the essay into 3 parts. After I decided that I created 3 drafts, drafting, before my final outcome. I expended a few days working on starting this process and creating these drafts, which did guide me to create my final essay. I also participated in peer review, collaborating and editing, in which we revised our works and gave feedback to each other. These strategies made me take into consideration some aspects of my essay, but it didn’t help me fulfill all the strategies that I needed to create my exploratory essay. In the future I will use more CLO’s strategies to work on my essays.

​In conclusion, when I look back at my exploratory essay, I was able to fulfill its purpose, however I did struggle with major points that the essay contained, perhaps I was not very direct and I mostly focused on the source rather than explaining its effectiveness. However, I think that I was able to, mostly, work on this issue and make the essay fulfill its purpose. I also think that my repetition of words/ideas may have been an issue, which is something I have to work on. I also believe that I should engage more with more CLO’s strategies, such as peer review, drafting, collaboration and practice of key rhetorical terms, so that I could create an essay that fulfills expectations. In the end I think the essay was not the worst outcome that I could had have, but I still have to work in my writing so that I could create better outcomes in other projects and fulfill my task to the best of my ability.