The Researched Critical Analysis Assignment required us to employ all six possible rhetorical situations to provide evidence for our progress as career designers in the context of Dr. Crismond’s Design Your Career Course. Following a thorough review, I feel that I understood the need for each rhetorical situation in this assignment, though I struggled to apply many of them.

The purpose of this demanding piece was to prove our competency in design thinking to Professor Crismond and the development of our writing skills to Professor Jamison. For me, it was important to prove (to myself) that the coursework I have completed up to this point has not been a waste of time. With this as my exigency, I explained my research-based stance: that choosing to formally study business would not exclude me from success as an artist should I opt for that path in the future. It is an idea I have spent the entire semester developing.

Unlike the Workview/Lifeview Essay, my intended audience was straightforward: I geared the content of the paper almost exclusively to Dr. Crismond (although I did not write directly to him, as in second person). Leaning on my assumption of audience lowered the degree to which I would have been required to provide context for the engineering principles.

The RCA Assignment is one of the first I have encountered which places a heavy emphasis on media and design. The rubric presented multiple unique prompts which required multiple unique responses. Although these responses were intended to unite into one cohesive topic, it was necessary to divide them into their own unique sections to avoid confusion.

To gather ideas about how to structure the RCA, I referred to Dr. Crismond’s Blackboard arsenal of course readings (which are all published research papers, conveniently enough). I noted the heavy use of headings and subheadings, and the use of integrated graphics, which contradicted the instructions provided in the grading rubric. I decided then that I could afford to take a light design risk and alter the required layout as long as I satisfied the length requirement. My divergence paid off in this area—Dr. Crismond approved of my visual design choices in his feedback.

Not all design decisions came so easily to me. It took some time and careful review to decide which pieces to include in my Appendix in support of my arguments. The focus on making effective media and design choices is based on the fact that the RCA is a research paper in engineering (which is its genre). Research papers do not function like any other piece of writing I’ve read before—they are extremely plain and direct, especially in the tone of the language used, and even compared to any other non-fiction I’ve ever read. My lack of encounters with this form of writing made me feel like I didn’t quite have the tools to “fall back on.”

Compounding the challenge is the fact that I have never been expected to compose in APA Style at a university level and that my writing style is narrative-oriented. My draft required two revisions before I considered it basically audience worthy—and even then, I wasn’t at all confident about the draft I submitted. It wasn’t until my fourth revision, close to the final draft, when the paper started to take shape. This phase was heavily reliant on Dr. Crismond’s criticisms; without them, I would have been lost.

I also found it hard to reconcile the “prototype” style of design work with the academic rigor of the RCA. To effectively capture my ideas in design coursework and encourage the flow of ideas, I removed the emphasis on writing in full and complete thoughts because it took too long.

The concepts discussed in the RCA were not new or unexpected by any means, but I found it difficult to transition from fragmented, bulleted ideas into complete, refined statements. I struggled to sum up my research from the website O*Net, for example, because like most websites, the information on O*Net is in bullet list form. How could I satisfy the rubric’s demand for a comprehensive list of courses for the business major in paragraph form, without it dragging out into a meaningless, droning recitation? I attempted to resolve this by layering list items with relevant examples.

The fact that I am able to not only identify how the rhetorical situations came into play, but employ them with intention, proves that I am meeting the “Course Learning Outcomes” as laid out in Professor Jamison’s syllabus. As per usual, I did not find the “collaborative” or “social” activities regarding the RCA to be helpful—though I’m sure many other students did. I am the kind of person who, when it comes to creative processes like writing, works best on her own and only trusts feedback from those she considers masters of the craft.

I know by now that as a learner, I personally benefit the most through the receipt of critical feedback, and iterating based on that feedback. I will make a point to more actively seek criticism in the future. I have never had to revise a paper so many times, or struggle so much to meet standards, though I know this will the first of many such instances. I continue to try anyway, because I believe that frustration and discomfort are integral to learning anything of value. After all, there is only so much a student can grow in his or her “comfort zone.”