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Jazmin Martinez

Judith R. McCann

ENGL 1302 - 213

8 February 2023

Reflection of The Difficulty of Preparing for Exams

Over the past few months, my writing has strengthened after taking the English 1301

course during the first semester of my junior year. The class helped me understand my writing

capabilities and how to write several types of essays in short amounts of time with different

genres, communities, etc. Now that the second semester has finally come around (honestly no

clue how I survived the first) I am feeling more confident in my writing skills. The last essay that

we had to write was a rhetorical analysis of different peer-reviewed articles, which aided in the

writing of this first essay. It helped me search for the peer-reviewed articles that I needed by

knowing how to look for the specific words I needed. Something that learning in English 1301

did not help with was the visual analysis essay we had to write. Being able to analyze images

visually was not part of this essay that we had to write, which dealt more with being able to

experiment on something we wanted to learn more about. This essay has taught me that studying

more often will increase your grades and how to think in APA format but write in MLA format.

It was fun to work on the experiment while also focusing on other classes that I am struggling

with, such as Anatomy, that class might be the death of me.

Additionally, when we had to peer-review each other's work, I received two comments

telling me that my thesis was “bad,” because it lacked details that would have made it a “good”

thesis. The thesis is supposed to be, according to Ms. McCann, “should be clear and direct and

should come in a thesis paragraph.” My thesis statement did come in a thesis paragraph at the

end of the introduction; however, it was not clear or direct and seemed more like a question
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rather than a statement. Other comments that I had gotten with the essay were of how confusing

the Methodology was. It was one big, long paragraph that did not flow together, so I split it up

into two separate sections so the readers would be able to follow it better.

Furthermore, the most challenging aspect of this essay was the amount of time we had to

do it. The period was about 2-3 weeks, which for me, was still mostly spent procrastinating. I

told myself this year would be the year that I started focusing on assignments and all other work

more and to stop procrastinating. My weaknesses remain the same as in 1301 because I have not

been able to improve my writing after the winter break. However, when 2023 came around, I

bought added items for my PC and finally found friends to play with daily. Instead of drafting

the essay, I spent my time playing games online and then realized if I keep putting it off for later

my writing will ultimately be crap. After telling my friends I would not be able to play with

them, they started offering me help with the essay, even though they knew nothing about it, just

so I could play, which is funny thinking of it now, but I declined their help. I am hopeful that the

next essay will be easier on me, and that I will turn into an academic weapon without

procrastinating.