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Alexis Celis

ENGL 1302-218

Professor Nelson

2 May 2023

A Final Reflection of ENGL 1302

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

other courses and possibly my future career.

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
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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

made sure my paragraphs had a good and clear flow.

Essay 2

Our second essay consisted of a Research Analysis Essay with an Annotated

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
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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.
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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

reference some of the work I did back to my essays.

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
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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

procrastination. Procrastination, a college student worst enemy, and because I procrastinate, I

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

words and remaining unconfident in how my essay sounds.

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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

was the most enjoyable part.

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.
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