Final Reflection Essay Outline
AI-enhanced title
Alexis Celis
ENGL 1302-218
Professor Nelson
2 May 2023
On January 17th was the first day of the ENGL 1302 course. Still unsure about my writing
skills, I sat in a chair waiting and overthinking of what this course consisted of. As I read through
the syllabus, I understood that we would be going towards research-based topics. Throughout
this semester I was faced with challenges that unfortunately I had no control over and are
currently still happening. Fortunately, I was able to bounce between Google Docs to complete
my work. Within this course I learned many useful tips and information that I can use towards
Essay 1
In Essay 1 our genre was focused on a research essay based on our personal experiment.
Having the opportunity to conduct a personal experiment made creating this essay enjoyable to
write. My ecstatic mind flooded with many experimental topics that I could choose from. As I
was choosing what experiment to conduct, I took various concepts into consideration, such as the
person, price, time, and knowledge. After careful consideration I ended up choosing to hydration
and the importance of it. As a student looking to pursue a Kinesiology major, I got the chance to
take both courses of Anatomy and Physiology, lecture and lab. Within these courses I was able to
fully grasp the concept of how important it is to be hydrated. With my knowledge of hydration
and research I did, I was able to complete this essay. For instance, off the top of my head I can
remember that water allows our bodies to properly function, lubricate our joints, maintaining Celis 2
body temperature from overheating, flushing out waste, and so much more. Next, I thought about
the people around me. These people were college students, we have so many things on our plate
that we forget the most simplest yet important item, water. Although some college students
struggle financially, the university has many resources for us to use, not to mention a Grande
water at Starbucks is free. By taking these factors into consideration I was able to come up with a
breakdown of how I was going to conduct my research. Once all my data and research were
collected, I was able to create the layout for my essay. When revising the final draft of this essay,
I went over the data I had and made sure to add more supporting background. After I revised my
final draft, I made sure that the information I had incorporated was in its corresponding place and
Essay 2
Bibliography. With the research analysis essay, I was able to choose an argumentative topic and
provide both viewpoints with supporting evidence. I chose my topic to be the controversy on
zoos and aquariums. In my opinion, this is one of the controversies that has many pros and cons.
It was interesting to find out the reasonings behind the different viewpoints and it made me
rethink my original viewpoint. During this essay I discovered that there were many types of
different aspects between the controversies of zoos and aquariums. For instance, I remember one
of the topics was dealing with the diseases that are carried in zoos and aquariums. I chose this
topic because I feel that it should be talked about since it is such a popular industry. When
revising my essay two I made sure to try and provide sufficient amount of supporting evidence
for both sides. I revised mostly all grammatical errors and refined my purpose in the essay.
Essay 3 Celis 3
Lastly the final essay was a Position Essay. In this essay, I took a position from the previous
essay. At first, I was against zoos and aquariums because of what I have seen on televisions,
documentaries, and social media outlets. Looking back on it now, having done all my research, I
now understand that most of the times it was taken out of context. I am not covering up the fact
that neglect and abuse happen in some zoos and aquariums, but there has been multiple articles
and discussions between professionals that have strong evidence for zoos and aquariums. With
that being said, I chose the position with the stronger supporting evidence. I enjoyed this position
essay because it made me realize that we don’t know much about what is going on in our world
and most of it is based off unreliable sources. When revising this essay, I made sure the word
count was within the criteria and I added more supporting evidence to back up my claim.
When designing my website, I based the background images based off of what the topic
was referring to in the essay. For my website I used the Wild Conservation Theme. This theme is
filled with various images of nature and wildlife. I chose to use this theme not only because it is
my topic for both essays two and three, but the images are absolutely gorgeous. Wildlife and
nature are a thing that people often overlook. However, these are topics and images that fully
encompass that mental and spiritual aspect. When a reader looks at the Homepage in my
portfolio, they see the title of the portfolio along with a description of ENGL 1302 and nature
images. Also in the Homepage, I incorporated a link to the Lunsford book that helped me write
my three essays. On the website the audience can also hover over the arrow pointing down to
look for the different pages and subpages. Within these pages are the final drafts, drafts,
reflections, and resources I used to help guide me through the course. As for designs on the
website I kept the theme mostly the same besides adding different backgrounds to the
corresponding topics. Celis 4
When revising and editing my final drafts I looked back on the took notes I took when the in-
class activities were taking place. These activities consisted of Dr. Nelson going over a revision
worksheet, or of similar topic. These allowed me to get an understanding of what Dr.Nelson was
expecting in my essays. Peer-reviewed workshop also helped me. By doing these workshops I
was able to get an understanding on how my peer viewed my essay. Not to mention that her
point of view could be completely opposite of what I think, so getting that feedback helped me
improve my essays. Not to mention that peer-review also allows us to get an understanding of
how other readers may view my essay. As far as homework assignments go, the quizzes helped
me the most at understanding and differentiating what was correct and incorrect. For instance,
earlier in the course we completed quizzes over works cited and I personally feel like that helped
me realize some of my own mistakes that I thought were correct. Another homework assignment
that helped me were the activities from the Lunsford book. By completing those I was able to
What I learned in ENGL 1302 was how to establish a researchable question, discover
relevant sources, provide evaluations, and determine my position on a topic. I can apply what I
learned in ENGL 1302 in my other courses, such as, Anatomy and Physiology lab and lecture.
These courses are extremely detailed and deal with various types of research depending on the
assignment for the day. I have found myself applying what I learned from ENGL 1302,
especially to my A&P Lab. Within the Lab I had to write a final paper dealing with a medical
disease in the reproductive system. I used the notes I had taken from essay 2 to be able to apply it
to my paper. Another course that I was able to use what I learned in ENGL 1302 is in my UNIV
course. The UNIV course consisted of various articles dealing with arguments, theories, and Celis 5
sources having to do with feminism and other controversial topics. Fortunately, I was able to use
what we learned, such as being able to persuade readers, into my UNIV course and succeeded.
Frankly, I strongly agree that ENGL 1302 can be applied to all my courses and there isn’t one
thing other than format that was not applied. I did hope that there would be more teaching of
other formatting styles, such as Chicago or APA formatting. Although there is not much of a
difference, I do think that it is important for students to understand the concepts of formatting
styles.
Over the course of this semester, I can say that my writing weakness and strengths have
varied depending on the essay. As for strengths I can say that I have gotten better at
incorporating supporting evidence. I was able to get different viewpoints from my peers and
tutor which allowed me to broaden my thoughts and include more supporting information.
Another strength of mine is my creativity that flows when I am interested in a topic. Once I write
down my notes for a topic, I am able to set up a whole layout, although my creativity sparks this
also does unfortunately leads to my weaknesses. My writing weakness is the lack of focus. I
personally feel that I go off track sometimes because of many reasons. One reason being
lose that train of thought and my paragraph get choppy. Also, the use of inadequate topic
sentences and vocabulary. I still feel like I lack in creating a strong topic sentence which results
in my ideas not being projected as I would like them to. Vocabulary is something that I have
been dealing with for quite some time. This is because when I was younger, I would use “big”
words and was told that I was plagiarizing my work. This resulted in me “dumbing” down my
While putting together my website I encountered some aspects that were somewhat
challenging. The most challenging part of this website was looking through my documents. This
was on account of my laptop application, Word, malfunctioning. While in the process of creating
my annotated bibliography and essay two, Word, unfortunately, was not responding and I lost
more than 6 pages of work. I got extremely frustrated, and it set me back on my research and
work. After being in contact with the support line for what seemed like eternity, I accepted the
fact that my work was gone, and I had to restart. Between my other courses and my job, I got
extremely overwhelmed, and I ultimately lost hope and submitted work that I know I could’ve
done better. I was jumping back and forth between devices and applications, such as Google
Docs and Word to give it one last chance, but it ended up still not working. Since I was going
back and forth between devices my documents were out of order and some drafts did not save.
On another note, the least challenging aspect of this website was creating the layout and
designing. Once I got my documents in order, I was able to focus on the website layout which
All things considered; ENGL 1302 has helped my identity change as a writer. I
understand myself better when it comes to different types of genres. By working on different
genres, this has allowed me to step outside my comfort zone and see where I fit in best. As of
now I am still unsure of my writing in certain aspects, but it has helped me self-reflect and
want to improve my writing. Not only improve but it has also made me want to broaden my
experiences, for instance, shadowing researchers and comparing methods for my future
career. ENGL 1302 has expanded my horizons by introducing me to new genres and
viewpoints and because of this I can say that my identity as a writer has positively developed. Celis 7
