Martinez 1

Yuritci Martinez

ENGL 1302-101

Dr. Sharity Nelson

17 September 2022

Reflection Essay 1

In 1301, I learned how to analyze an article by finding the main idea. How to have

organized paragraphs, and how to have an active voice. I also learned about MLA format,

plagiarism, and the importance of citing correctly. All these new things I learned in 1301, I used

them in my first essay in 1302. For example,” The data collected in this research showed that on

the days that the student/participant was with the dog, while studying and doing homework the

student’s stress and anxiety were reduced” (Martinez, “Dogs can decrease stress and anxiety

from university students”,4). This example is evidence of an active voice sentence, I used in my

essay 1. The tone of an active voice sentence usually straightforward and direct, which supports

the reader in focusing on the text and the action. Another example I used in essay 1 was citations

on MLA format. For example, “As states in this article, “Pet therapy as a therapeutic

phenomenon has grown rapidly in recent decades with animal-assisted interventions being

implemented across a range of healthcare environments” (Wood Emily,1). The last name of the

author and the location of the quote information are often included in text citations in MLA style.

In 1301, I learned how to analyze communities, situations and how to compare genres.

This information I used in 1301 was not applicable for my first essay in1302. I learned in one of

my classes to do my essays in APA format and to write in first person or second person. This

thing I leaned in other classes were not applicable to my essay 1 because in my first essay needed

to be in MLA format and needed to be written in third person. For example, “she was only able
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to concentrate for 15 minutes”.” She was able to concentrate more than the first day with a total

of about 35 minutes to complete homework” (Martinez, “Dogs can decrease stress and anxiety

from university students”,4). I learned in my first essay, how to make research by using different

articles/sources and putting all the information in one essay. This will help me on my other

classes because two of my classes, we are starting to do essays, and this will give a little bit of

advantages. I think these new techniques I learned in essay 1 are going to help more on my

Music class because we need to do an essay in MLA format. Also, I need to add at least one peer

review article about a type of music genre for a final grade. I successfully identified how to

design an experiment that responds to a research question in essay1.This experiment must

include a researchable question, ways to address it, and a way to combine the findings of my

experiment with those of others who have studied the same subject. This type of essay will not

be applicable to my other classes because every class or professor teach you differently or want

the essay in another format/style.

The creation of the experiment with the outside research helps me improve my writing

because this though me to be more organize and be more direct with my writing. This will help

me approach writing tasks in the future because the writing will always be part of our life. For

example, the major/career I choose, we use a lot of writing for essays, assignments, and projects.

Also, the writing tasks will help me for my future job because as a teacher we used a lot of

writing. My writing strengths are that my paragraphs are well organize, I have good evidence,

support, a claim, and elaboration. For example,” Therefore, first-year students are more likely to

encounter challenges as they learn to adjust to and manage their new obligations. For students

who are struggling with psychological conditions like anxiety and depression, these new

responsibilities could be much more challenging” (Martinez, “Dogs can decrease stress and
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anxiety from university students”,1). This example is about my claim and my thesis statement for

essay 1 and this is one of my writing strengths. My writing weakness is that sometimes I insert a

lot of extra information on my essay and be better in my writing skills. I still need help on the

part where you need to be specified on my introduction and be clearer on what I want to say on

my paragraphs. My weaknesses and strengths are a little bit different because I have progressed

on my writing skills. Something I learned from my peer comments is that I need to be more

specified/clearer on my claim/thesis. The most challenging aspect of this essay is that I needed to

collect a lot of information and analyze the four articles for the essay. For me this was the most

challenging because this was my first time doing this type of essay and first time doing my own

experiment. The least challenging was doing the timeline, the chart graph, the discussion, and my

conclusion for this essay.

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Works Cited

“Dogs can decrease stress and anxiety from university students”. Draft 2. 12 September

2022.ENGL 1302, Texas A&M International University, student paper.

“Dogs can decrease stress and anxiety from university students”. Draft 1. 5 September

2022.ENGL 1302, Texas A&M International University, student paper.

Martinez, Yuritci. “Dogs can decrease stress and anxiety from university students”.3

September 2022.ENGLE 1302, Texas A&M International University, student paper.