Rodriguez 1

Jose Rodriguez

Professor Briones

ENGL 1302

May 06, 2024

Final Reflection Essay

I learned a lot this semester in my English course. I learned about the writing process and

a lot moore stuff. I have experienced a multitude of challenges in this course, as well as some

simple ones. Throughout this final reflection essay, I will be talking about what I learned in this

course and how it has helped me improve my writing and reflecting skills.

In this course, I had to do a lot of research on the topic I chose at the beginning of the

semester. I started the semester off by picking a topic to create an annotated bibliography. The

topic I chose was the psychological effects video games can have on adolescents. To create the

annotated bibliography, I searched peer-reviewed articles on my topic and cited them in a

Google document. Then, I read (skimmed) the articles and used the information I learned and

used it to create an abstract for each source. An abstract is a small summary of the information

that will be found in the article. Using this really helped me understand the process of academic

research. Although this process is mainly useful in my English course, I can easily apply the

academic research process to other classes. For example, I once had to write an essay for my

Political Science class based on a topic he had discussed in class. However, I had not learned

about the academic research process yet. I spent days trying to find information on Google

getting different results from different websites. In the end, I was not sure what information to

use since I had no idea whether any of the information was reliable or not. But now that I have

learned and used the academic research process, It will definitely make it easier to do research.
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In addition to using this process to create an annotated bibliography for English this semester, I

also had to create one for my UNIV class. This made it easier to find information on the topic we

discussed throughout the semester.

Back to the topic at hand, I learned a lot about the writing process in this course. I learned

how to properly use my information and how to format it as best as I can. One of the main things

that I have learned and understood the most was the bubble web technique. Basically, you start

off with the main topic in the middle. Then, you would branch it out into subtopics in order to

broaden your research. This helped me find a good amount of research for my annotated

bibliography. Since my main topic was the psychological effects video games have on

adolescents, I branched it out to the following sub-topics: educational skills, social skills, and

cognitive skills. Using this, I was able to begin drafting my essay by laying out my information.

After turning in my first draft, my professor would leave notes and tell me how to improve my

writing so then I would begin the revising and editing phase. In addition to fixing mistakes, I

would also add information and be sure to avoid the mistakes I had previously made. One of the

mistakes I kept making was not citing properly or using the wrong font for the header. So

throughout the writing process, I was very cautious in doing everything correctly.

One of the main steps of the writing process that I focused on was the revising stage.

When it came to revising my work, I learned a lot about my writing. I learned that I tend to make

the same mistakes repeatedly. After receiving feedback on my first draft, I would go over the

feedback and see what I needed to work on. One of the assignments I made the most mistakes on

was the researched position essay. In this essay, I was not citing my sources correctly. I did it

throughout my paper but I had my information correct. Also, when I turned it in I did not use the

appropriate amount of sources as I should have. I was off by one. Although I did not get a chance
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to fix that, I still learned and will now be able to revise my work properly in the future. I went to

ACE once for a writing assignment. The person who assisted me also helped me revise my essay.

They said that I am stating my information but I need to be more specific and not assume that

others will know what I am saying. They helped me with the revising process and showed me

how to properly format the information I had so it would sound more appealing. After getting

these notes from the person, I was able to use them in order to improve my writing, not just in

English but in other classes as well.

Continuing with the topic of revising, one of the aspects that I found the most challenging

was having learned so much information that it crowded my mind and I would forget to include

some of it in my writing. There were a few times when I would go into so much detail on one

subject in a previous essay that I would forget to add just as much detail on the other topics. For

example, In the literary review essay, I went way too much into detail on the cognitive skills that

can be gained by video games and I did not include as much information on other topics. This

led to me mainly focusing on that same topic in my other essays since that was what I

remembered since I spent most of my writing on it. On the contrary, one of the least challenging

aspects of revising my research genre assignment was that all my information was correct. If

anything, I just had to double-check to see if I cited properly (most of the time I did not). In

addition, I would also make sure I used the correct format (MLA) because sometimes I would

accidentally use the wrong font. I mainly used the wrong font on the headers or I would type

“works cited” in bold letters. So all in all, the most challenging aspect was some information

outweighing the others, and the least challenging aspect was my grammar or formatting errors

such as incorrect citations.

I learned a lot of course concepts in this class such as academic research and the writing

process. In order to communicate the concept of academic research, I uncluded my annotated

bibliography. In addition to this, I also provided small definitions for each essay I did. For

example, I provided a definition for annotated bibliography, as well as for literature review and

researched position essay. In order to make the concepts of annotated bibliography, literature

review and researched position essay more understandable to those with little to no knowledge, I

provided a definition. The definitions themselves were not too complex, which made them easier

to understand. For example, my definition for annotated bibliography was something along the

lines of “an annotated bibliography is a page filled wit sources that are cited accordingly and

include an abstract which is a small summary of the information in the article/source.” Similarly,

I proveided a definition for literature review. This definition was “a literature review is an article

that provides information (and citations) on a topic and provides an unbiased view on the topic at

hand. On the other hand, the definition for a researched position essay was similar to a literature

review except for one major detail. So, my definition for a researched position essay was “an

article that provides information on a topic and cites its sources AND has a biased

opinion/focuses on one aspect of the topic.” Although these are not the best definitions, I found

them really helpful.

I learned a lot during this course, It was a really enjoyable experience and I really liked

the professor and her teaching style. Although it was a pretty straightforward class, there were

some aspects of the course that I found challenging. One of the most challenging things this

course was probably speaking in front of the class. I only did it twice, once for the powerpoint I

helped present and then again for the trial in class. It was not the worst experience ever but I do

have trouble talking in front of groups of people. I seemed to have more trouble in the actual
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research and writing process. When it came to challenging aspects in the research and writing

process, one of the things I struggled with the most was finding good articles. Some articles

seemed really good and informed but they were not peer reviewed, others had great titles but did

not have a working link. It was a constant cycle and It was hard to find and cite good credible

articles. I even had to remove some articles from my annotated bibliography further on because

their link stopped working. Not to mention, half of the articles I used were translated from

spanish because there was such a lack of good information in english. And since they were

translated, soe of the grammar was off and I could not correctly understand the infromarion I

needed to use in my essays. This led to me only using five sources rather than six in my final

essay, the researched position essay.

On the contrary, One of the less challenging aspects of the class was attending her class

and paying attention to the lectures in class, as well as other students presentations. Paying

attention and understanding the lectures was crutial in understanding the information I would

need for my essays. Not to mention, the students presentations made it a lot easier to understand

information rather than having to read a full chapter on the topic. In addition, I learned that One

of my strengths in my research and writing skills was being able to use my information well, as

well as elaborate it and make it make sense. Another strength that I discovered is that I work well

under pressure. Although I hate to admit it, I did most of my assignmetns last minute. They

would completely slip my mind and I would edn uo completing them a few hours before they

were due. I am not proud of it, but I am just glad I was able to put out enough words and

information last minute and still have my infromation be clear and understandable.

This course was supposed to help me prepare to become art of the academic research

community. In my opinion, I believe this course did in fact help me. Before this course, I had no
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idea how to make an annotated bibliography, let alone find information that was deemed reliable.

But during this course, I learned how to do just that and many more. Now I know how to

properly find reliable peer reviewed information as well as use it to create my own works of

literature. This course taught me hoe to correctly create a literature review and a researched

position essay. Without this class, I would not have know how to do most of this stuff. In

addition, I have always had struggles with citations, but ater taking this class and receiving

constant feedback from my professor I was able to start correctly citing my information

depending on which citation fit the format at the time.

This course has taught me a multitude of things, from how to find peer reviewed articles

for an annotated bibliography, to how to use my information in a unbiased and biased way

(literature review and researcehd position essay) in order to educate others on a topic. I had a

great experience in this class and gained so much knowledge on the academic process as well as

academic learning. This knowledge that I have gained will further help me improve on my

writing skills throughout my life. I may even get to use these newly learned skills in other

courses I decide to take.