Sociology

Answer 1 While composing the essays of this term, I was constantly thinking about the audience of my essays. For a writer who is still learning the skills of writing, audience not only becomes the most important factor but also someone from whom the writer expects maximum praise, understanding and conformity of viewpoints. For any student, good writing means the opportunity to achieve good grades. I would like to confide at this juncture of my course that just like a baby who changes his actions depending upon the feedback he gets from the adults around him, I was making all attempts to improve my capabilities and writing techniques according to the feedback that I was getting from my tutor. So my tutor was my ultimate audience. Whether it was a persuasive or a narrative essay, my most important goal was to make my tutor happy.

Since I was getting feedback from my tutor in the forms of grades and additional comments regarding my essays, I would say, the concept of an active audience helped me improving my writing, each time I attempted an essay. I learnt many valuable writing techniques through my audience feedback. I was able to identify many of my flaws of writing through the audience of my essays. Hence the concept of audience immensely affected my writing and brought a positive change in it by the end of the term.
Initially, my writing strategy was to put forward those points only that would sound good. I thought that this way the audience will be on my side. But later I realized that the audience does not appreciate only those writings that match their own point of view, rather they get attracted towards the writings in which the ideas have been presented well. They need the ability in a writer to put conflicting ideas with ease. This insight increased my confidence level manifold. I became more relaxed after realizing that the audience will see how well I am presenting my point of view rather than scrutinizing what I am presenting before them. I understood that what I say is not as important as how I say it.

I would like to explain my point of view with the examples of two of my essays. One is the research essay titled Careers in Communication and the other is the Personal Narrative essay. Apart from my ultimate audience, who was naturally my tutor, I considered my fellow students as the audience of Careers in Communication. Needless to say, after I considered my audience to be of the same age as that of mine, my mind became stress free. Dealing with the audience was no more difficult. This was because I know what a student who is planning a career in the field of communication feels, what his dilemmas are and what he has discovered after enrolling in a communications course. Thus dealing with the audience became a cake walk. I felt as if I am writing to my friends, regarding my discoveries.

Just considering the tutor as the audience would not have given me the confidence with which I presented my point of view. Constantly thinking that I am interacting with my friends gave a lot of self confidence and inspiration to write. The ideas started flowing into my mind as I am aware of the thought processes of people of my age. Thus selecting an audience completely changed the process of my writing. I enjoyed writing and researching for this essay a lot and was very satisfied with the end result. I think the essay would have lacked the youthful characteristics, if I would have written without a specific audience in mind.

While writing the Personal Narrative, I became my own audience. The process of writing the personal narrative was more like conversing with my inner self. It was like putting my thoughts in words. I wrote this essay, just as the way I think. Perhaps this is the reason why it took lesser time than what it generally takes me to write an essay. At the end of the essay, I was surprised with the way I was able to put my thoughts on paper in one go. This process was so stimulating for me that I did not feel the urge to take a break while I was writing. It was a relaxing and soothing experience. It lightened my mind and heart. It generated my understanding about my inner self and my deep desires and feelings.
While writing my Personal Narrative essay, I felt that I am not conversing with any person other than me. It was like I am taking stock of the lesson I learnt from a recent experience. It was like making a personal strategy of how to deal with the challenges of life and how to react in different situations. The essay writing process taught me what steps I need to take in order to build a healthy future.

Thus, in this case being ones own audience did wonders. I was able to deliver what was required. For my tutor it must have been completion of an assignment but for me it was an enlightening and soul searching experience. It made the process of writing very satisfying and engaging. Being ones own audience proved to be beneficial for the essay too. It turned out to be exactly the way it was expected by the tutor. It really looked like an honest account of ones feelings related to an important event of life. It very beautifully brought out the lessons that I learnt and the way I would be able to utilize those lessons in future.

An audience is an integral part of any essay. It helps the writer in identifying the focus of writing. It sets the tone of writing. Just like dressing without knowing whether one is going to a wedding or a funeral is impossible, writing without knowing the audience is like devastating ones own effort and time. If we know the exact location, where our written statements would reach it would be easier to frame the words accordingly and emerge successful in all ones writing endeavors. I am happy that the various writing assignments of this course have helped me in realizing the important of the audience.

Answer 2 The epistemology of the essays in my course is all the insight that I have gained so far. It is not an exaggeration, rather I truly believe that no matter how well one writes with the help of different scholarly sources, the capability to skim the most relevant information from the plethora of information that is available to the students, comes from both the formal and informal conversations of the class. Since my course focused a lot on group communication, I gathered a lot of information during the healthy interactions with my team mates. Thus my primary source of understanding for the essays of my course was none other than my tutor and classmates.

While writing the essays, I indulged in lots of research. Some research materials helped me in providing the insight that directly related to the topic of the essay and some were not so directly related yet instilled the ability of critical thinking in me in order to gather the crux of information that was being presented by the various writers. All the direct and indirect sources were thus the epistemology of the essays in my course.

I would like to focus my discussion on two essays that I wrote. One is the research essay titled Careers in Communication and the other is the Personal Narrative essay. I did a lot of research for Careers in Communication. The four sources that I used while writing Careers in Communication have naturally played an important role as the epistemology of my essay. Bureau of labor statistics, an occupational handbook provided lots of background information and statistics regarding the professional realities of those engaged in the field of communication. Great Jobs for Communication Majors taught a lot of market trends in the field of communication. It was a big eye opener regarding what job suits a person most, depending in the branch of communication one is interested in. Creating Your Career in Communications and Entertainment was like an A-Z guide of what one needs to know about this field. It also helped me in understanding the difference between the myths and realities of this field.  Personal Communication was a wonderful book and a great epistemological source. The easy to follow format did not require any effort from me. Rather the book itself kept on showering me with lots of knowledge that I will be using in my everyday life.

Apart from this scholarly knowledge, I thoroughly learnt about the subject I was writing upon while conducting an interview with Rupert, a student of communications. Without realizing I gained information about what exactly a student who is about to join the professional world feelS about the challenges of studying communications. I also observed a lot of students in my class and also a few of the communication tutors before devoting a couple of paragraphs in the essay on the characteristics of students and teachers of communication. Hence their emotions and body languages are of course an important epistemology of my essay.

I also watched lots of T.V. while writing this essay I observed lots of news anchors and closely watched the advertisements, their frequencies and timings. So the T.V. that was a source of entertainment for those who were watching it with me, was serving a completely different purpose to me. It was not an object of entertainment at that time rather it was playing the role of epistemology for my essay, Careers in Communication. During that time as well as throughout my course, I have treated the newspaper, as the epistemology. I have read it not only for its news value but to learn the and observe the skills of newspaper layout, the way a story is presented, the length of story, the accuracy of information, the types of advertisements and of course the copywriting of all the advertisements right from the headline to the slogan.

In my second essay, Personal Narrative, all the experience right from the day I joined the college was epistemology. The teachers, the students and the people who were being made the leaders of different groups proved to be a huge learning source for me. I have compared the leaders of my communications class with other leaders that I have come across in my past classess. So my old classmates were also source of knowledge for me. I think my past experiences i.e. the experiences that I gathered before joining the communications class is the main guiding force that has helped me in framing my personal narrative. I have spoken about a particular task in my personal narrative. The memories of that task and the reaction of my team mates when we were not able to successfully complete that task are all epistemology for me.

I would modestly give a lot of credit to my own thinking process and analytical skills. It is because of these two important ingredients of my personality that I was able to frame a good personal narrative. Hence my own mental framework was an epistemology for my assignment.

Apart from all this I used the book titled Management by Montana and Charnov. From a traditional perspective, it was a good source of knowledge for my essay titled Personal Narrative. That book has been beautifully designed to help our business leaders manage their businesses successfully. In that book there is a special section on leadership on which I particularly devoted a substantial amount of time. Hence the book and the section on leadership are huge source of information for me.

No matter from where one gathers information or what type of knowledge one is gaining, if it contributes towards the understanding of a topic or if it helps in writing of an assignment then it is epistemology. I am glad that I was able to grasp this insight through this exam. So now, this exam becomes an important epistemology for my knowledge about epistemology.