Reflective Letter

Transfer & Connections to Discipline

I think the practice of writing in and reading examples of different literary styles in Japanese was good experience for me as an English Major with the intention of going into the editing field. Being an editor does not mean you have all the answers stored in your brain. Instead it means you have the ability to recognize a problem, and the resources to find a solution.

For the final writing project, I had many words and phrases I wanted to use, but I did not yet know how to say them in Japanese. So, I used Japanese dictionaries and websites like Jisho to find words that matched what I wanted to say. However, in Japanese there are sometimes many different ways to say something, each with a slightly different connotation. So I had to be extra careful with my choices, looking at example sentences and multiple dictionaries to make sure I was using the correct word in the correct way.

For example, in my writing project I wanted to talk about preparing for my talk abroad. While preparing I would look up vocabulary I thought I would likely want to use in the conversation. However, I did not know how to say “look up something”. Originally I looked for a word meaning “research”, and landed on 探索, however I didn’t think it best matched what I wanted to say. I kept looking and when looking at example sentences for the verb 調べる, I found an example sentence that matched exactly.

As an editor, I do not expect to always be familiar with the topic of the work I am reviewing and editing. I expect I will have to look up much regarding many topics, and I will employ the same strategies that I used while revising my final writing project for this course.