A Powerful Reflection

Ritik Malhotra

Near Eastern Studies R1B Lecture 4

Response Paper: Reflection on Diagnostic Essay

A Powerful Reflection

Upon reflecting on my initial diagnostic essay, I have found that my writing style has more or less remained the same. Over the course of this class, although I did learn new research techniques and new ways of integrating sources, I continued to use the same writing style as before, as I thought it to be most effective in getting my point across. However, on this note, I have noticed that the sources I used in my diagnostic essay are not entirely credible in nature and the way I integrated them into my paper is not the most effective way of doing so.

Regarding the actual content of my essay, I talked about two prominent and powerful figures, Bernie Madoff and Bill Gates, and how they were able to exercise their power in bad and good ways respectively. Since then, my view on power has greatly been expanded, as I have learned more about the many different forms of power (social, ideological, etc. as Mann and other authors would describe them as) and is no longer a narrow-minded concept in my head. This made me realize that my analysis of power in my diagnostic essay is highly primitive and is a very general overview of what it really is. While lots of the forms of power that we discussed in this class can be placed in the two categories of good and evil power that I discussed in my essay, I now realize that there is much more depth and detail to such a concept after going through this class.

Overall, while I may not be a Near Eastern Studies major, I am very glad that I was able to expand my horizons through this class. Apart from just the raw knowledge that I gained from the texts and discussions in this class, I also gained insight into thinking in a different way, which is clearly exemplified by the comparison of my way of thinking about power initially to how it is now.