Reflective Report on Essay Writing and Group Presentations

This reflective report discusses the importance of essay writing and group presentations in enhancing communication skills. It explores the usefulness of essay writing, the importance of structure and form, and the benefits of group presentations in fostering collaboration and communication. The report concludes with the impact of these skills on personal growth and development.

Running head: REFLECTIVE REPORT
Reflective Report
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Reflections on Essay Writing..........................................................................................................2
Usefulness....................................................................................................................................2
Change.........................................................................................................................................3
Change in future..........................................................................................................................4
Group Presentation Reflections.......................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
In this assignment, I will reflect on two important components of my course, namely,
essay writing and group presentation, both of which had an important role to play in shaping and
enhancing my skills in communication. I will first reflect in detail on what I learnt as a part of the
classes that were taken on essay writing after which I will proceed to reflect on everything that I
learnt when engaging in group presentations with my peers and associates in the class.
Reflections on Essay Writing
Usefulness
The course that I attended on essay writing is one that had a crucial role to play in getting
me to learn how to put my thoughts down on paper. By taking part in this particular course I
learnt all about the do’s and the don’ts of writing well and of everything that I need to avoid
when writing, in order to make sure that whatever it is I write, comes across as flawless. The task
of writing an essay is not an easy as we normally think it to be. I got to learn while doing this
course that in order to be able to write an essay well, it is necessary to first gather thoughts and
jot down all the important points that are going to be included in the essay on a piece of paper.
Once this has been done, the next important thing to do is to ensure that the thoughts are well
organized in terms of cohesion. One point should follow another point, and in this way the entire
essay becomes organized in its structure (Adler et al. 2016). What I have come to learn through
the course that I attended on essay writing is the fact that structure and form are the most
important things that are analyzed in an essay. If the structure and the form of the essay are not
alright to begin with, then it becomes very difficult to regard and interpret an essay as an essay

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(Danisch 2019). Another one of the things that I learnt as a part of my course on essay writing is
how to express my thoughts on various points in clear and lucid style. What an essay really
enables us to do is to put our thoughts together and express them in a way that we would not
have been able to do verbally. It is herein that one can detect the true merits and advantages of
essay writing. An essay is nothing but the outlet that a person needs to vent his thoughts and
feelings in a creative and lucid style. I personally am able express myself quite well when I
engage in essay writing activities. The more I do essay writing, the better I feel. I believe that
what essay writing does for me is induce the catharsis or release of emotions, helping me to
channel out all of the pent up emotions that are there inside of me in the form of writing. The
more I write essays the better it is that I feel as a person.
Change
Apart from teaching me how to express my thoughts and emotions in the best possible
way, what the essay course that I attended helped me to do was to give expression to all the
negative emotions that I had in my since my childhood. Hence the art of essay writing is one that
not only helped me to express my emotions in a positive way, but which played an important role
in helping me vent all of my negative emotions too. In fact, I believe that if we are all
encouraged to write essays and are taught how to write essays then it can go a long way in
helping us to grow and develop as human beings. The more we write and the more we express
ourselves, the better this is going to be for our personal satisfaction.
What I really appreciated about the course on essay writing that I was a part of was how
the essay writing guidelines taught me how to stick to the point. I learnt about all the things that I
needed to do in order to write my essay in a way that it does not deviate from the main subject
matter of the essay. Many people who engage in essay writing activities are seen to deviate from

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the point once they do start writing the essay. Sticking to the point at the time of writing an essay
is something that appears to be difficult for writers to do, many of whom get carried away by
their thoughts and ideas at the time of writing. Yet moving away from the main point of
argument is possibly the biggest mistake that we can make when writing essays, and this is
something valuable that I learnt as a part of my essay writing course.
Change in future
The essay writing course that I happened to be a part of also taught me how to form very
critical arguments at the time of writing. In fact, almost all essays are supposed to be critical in
nature. This is primarily because of the fact that the whole point in writing an essay is to give
vent to feelings and emotions about a particular matter, be it personal or private or be it a
professional matter. It therefore requires the use of critical elements, many of which I got to learn
as a part of the course that I attended on essay writing. Style and language also have a crucial
role to play as far as essay writing is concerned (Simonson et al. 2019). The more well developed
the style and the language of the essay is, the better it is going to read. In the ultimate analysis it
is important that an essay reads well after it has been written. There is no point in writing an
essay in a half hearted way I believe. That is something that wouldn’t serve any purpose at all.
Group Presentation Reflections
The second most important thing that I learnt was how to engage in communication in the
form of group presentations. What the group presentation essentially does, is give us the
opportunity to express ourselves as part of a collective unit rather than on an individual basis
(Ruesch et al. 2017). When we partake in a group presentation, then we get to talk about and
present on ideas that are important to us, and we get to do this together instead of doing it all on

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our own. The greatest thing that I learnt from my involvement in group presentations in the class
is the spirit of collaboration and cooperation. By engaging in group presentation activities I
learnt about the importance of engaging the support of others in order to get something done.
The group presentations that I was a part of were those that required me to play an active role
and which in turn happened to boost my confidence quite a bit. Group presentations have given
me the scope to speak before an audience (Hamda et al. 2019). Owing to the fact that I took part
in group presentations I am today able to speak before a wide section of people without
experiencing any discomfort or stage fright. The group participations that I was involved in as
part of my classwork, also gave me the opportunity to engage in a healthy debate with my class
mates and peers on a wide variety of subjects. I was able to debate on a number of important
issues that are close to my heart owing to the fact that I got involved in group presentations. If I
were the single speaker, I may not have been able to articulate my thoughts and emotions well
enough. However, since it was through a group that I was communicating, I was able to express
my ideas and thoughts in a far better manner than before. The whole act of engaging in group
communication is something that has taught me that cooperation is very important in life, and the
ore we cooperate with others the better this is for our personal growth and development (Gupta
2019).
A crucial thing that I learnt as a part of the group presentations which I was involved in
was the fact that communicating about political thoughts and ideas is one of the most important
ways by which we express our beliefs on various matters (Koponen et al. 2019). The group
presentations which I took part in were those that involved expressing ourselves in a number of
ways, both politically, as well as otherwise. The group presentations were therefore the perfect
platform for me to express my thoughts on a number of political and social issues that are close

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to my heart. In expressing such views, I also got to understand that the views that I have on a
variety of matters, be these political and social matters are those that are not likely to be accepted
well enough by other people. Freedom of thinking and expression is something that we are all
entitled to, but by being a part of group presentations I got to learn that accepting the view point
of others, that is the perspectives that other people have on a variety of matters is also something
that is very important. Political and social perspectives on different subjects make for great
discussion and debate and I am more than happy that the group presentations that I was a part of
not only gave me the scope of expressing myself in the best possible way on a number of
different matters but also helped me to both understand and also accept the views of others
(Harris and Sherblom 2018).
The final important thing that I learnt as a part of the group reflections that I was a part of
is the fact that working together as a collective unit is something that helps to resolve problems
such as loneliness (Howland and Lumsdaine 2017). To be honest, I am a person who has always
been a loner for the most part of my life. I have always been relaxed and easy going and I have
not communicated with people more than required. This in turn has resulted in me feeling very
lonely and dejected on several occasions. The group presentations in the class gave me the scope
to interact with more people my age. I got to learn not only the different views and perspectives
that my classmates have on many different matters, but I also got to learn about the many
different ways by which communication can be carried out with other people. By getting
involved in group presentations I understood and realized that some people are kind and helpful
while others are not. Some people are generous at heart while others can be quite mean and
parsimonious (Mohammad and Rashid 2019).

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Conclusion
All in all, what the group presentations helped me to do is to express my thoughts in the
most clear and concise of ways. This in turn did a lot for my personal confidence. I can proudly
say that today I communicate with a greater degree of confidence with both my friends and my
peers because of the verbal and visual communications skills that I learnt while engaging in
group presentations. The group presentations did a lot to boost my ego too and I am not
necessarily saying that being given the opportunity to speak before an audience has made me a
proud person. Yes I am proud that I learnt how to communicate in front of people without feeling
scared, but this has not induced any arrogance in me. I am excited and happy with what I learnt
as part of my group presentations and I believe that everything that I have learnt is going to
prove to be very useful for me in the school of life. Life is full of stressful and challenging
situations and more often than not, good communication has a vital role to play in helping to
resolve the stress and the strain that life’s situations bring with them, the stress and strain I can
now beat through good and effective communication that I learnt through group presentations.

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Bibliography
Adler, R.B., Rodman, G.R. and Du Pré, A., 2016. Understanding human communication (Vol.
10). Oxford University Press.
Danisch, R., 2019. On the Uses and On-going Relevance of Pragmatism for Communication
Studies. In Recovering Overlooked Pragmatists in Communication (pp. 1-22). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
Gupta, R., 2019. Effective Business Communication Skills for Professional Excellence. IJELLH
(International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities), 7(2), pp.10-10
Hamdan, Y., Sofyan, A., Ratnasari, A. and Yuniati, Y., 2019. Business Presentation to Increase
Product Sales of Farm Group Members. In Social and Humaniora Research Symposium (SoRes
2018). Atlantis Press.
Harris, T.E. and Sherblom, J.C., 2018. Small group and team communication. Waveland Press.
Hovland, C.I. and Lumsdaine, A.A., 2017. Experiments on mass communication (Vol. 4976).
Princeton University Press.
Koponen, J., Julkunen, S. and Asai, A., 2019. Sales communication competence in international
B2B solution selling. Industrial Marketing Management.
Mohamed, A.F. and Rashid, R.A., 2019. INTERACTIVE RESOURCES OF
METADISCOURSE MARKERS IN GOOD AND WEAK UNDERGRADUATE
ESSAYS. Trends in Social Sciences, 1(1), pp.1-6

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Ruesch, J., Bateson, G., Pinsker, E.C. and Combs, G., 2017. Communication: The social matrix
of psychiatry. Routledge.
Simonson, P., 2019. Jefferson D. Pooley, James W. Carey and Communication
Research. International Journal of Communication, 13, p.3.