For our two FIQWS class, we had an assignment on writing an exploratory essay. Basically this assignment is based on academic articles regarding the Columbian Exchange. Each of my peers had to come up with our own response as to whether or not the author was able to connect and use their sources for their position. The 3 most important questions for this assignment was, “What sources did the author use? How did the author use the sources? How effective were the sources to the author’s goal?” In order to analyze the academic piece, we had to make sure we were able to answer these questions thoroughly. 

The purpose of this essay was to analyze and discuss how Carney’s use of sources help develop her position on African influence on the Columbian Exchange. In order for me to assess Carney’s work, I researched a lot of her sources containing information on certain claims Carney made. For instance, when Carney wanted to back up her claims on African obtaining a lot of resources from their own land I decided to research where she got her source from and how she was able to imply the source to her academic journal. 

This assignment was confusing to carry out because I had trouble paraphrasing the source Carney provided. For instance, I had to keep on searching online different words to replace the vocabulary Carney used in her article. Adding on, I had multiple struggles with maintaining the flow of the essay. I did not want my audience to become entangled on whether or not Carney’s source was credible because that was not my intention. I wanted my audience to understand that although Carney’s essay was not all credible, she was able to use the evidence gathered from her books/journals in order to write a well written academic journal. 

After writing this essay, I realized there were a lot more mistakes I could improve on. For instance, I need more practice on grammar, as well as using too many extra words in order to make my sentences look classy or sophisticated in away. Overall, I don’t think this was my best work because I could have improved on adding more information/evidence to provide a better back up to my position/claims.