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Itzel Soto

ENGL 1302-480

Dr. Hanan Saadi

18 July 2023

Essay 1 Reflection

In the Personal Experiment and Research Essay, I learned how to create my own research

on a topic that had interested me. What I had learned in 1301 that I used in this first essay in

1302 was how to find peer-reviewed articles. In 1301 I learned I can limit my library search

database by clicking on peer-reviewed articles only and that’s where I found my articles that I

used in 1302. The knowledge I gained in 1301, which I applied in my 1302 essay, was applying

my critical thinking skills and properly how to cite and write in MLA. The homework

assignments from 1301 helped me gain knowledge to complete my 1302 homework assignments

which then helped in my 1302 essay overall.

What I had learn from 1301 was to describe and analyze a genre which I did not apply in

this 1302 essay because this essay required for me to join the conversation in the scholarly field

of study and create my own research on a topic. In other classes I have learned how to do

equations and draw, art and math, which I did not apply in this essay because this essay required

critical thinking and analysis skills. In my science courses, I have learned how to create variables

and results which I applied in my 1302 essay. For instance, in science class we had to create an

experiment and hypothesis on whether oil will sink or float on water. We then created a questions

and had to get the materials to start the experiment and record the results, which this knowledge I

applied in my 1302 essay.

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In this first essay of my 1302 course, I have learned how to summarize my findings on a

topic and create variables and result on a scholarly field of study where I had to join a

conversation. With creating a research paper, designing my own materials and way of

experimenting with applying others’ researches on the topic; I can apply what I learned in this

essay to other courses like philosophy and other english courses. For instance, explaining my

findings and incorporating other researches’ will help me be knowledge in a philosophy course

on how to read and find sources on a specific topic and write about it.

In this essay, I learned various ways to explain my results on a personal experiment and

research paper. I learned how to communicate the findings on the articles I found onto my essay.

Keeping a journal and writing down the sub points onto my essay was something very

knowledgeable that I gained. Learning all this will not be applicable to other courses like art and

math, because art requires to freely think and draw. Whereas, math requires you to input numbers

and variables into equations to solve as a problem.

The creation of an experiment with findings from outside research has helped improve

my writing, in general, by learning how to properly communicate the findings I found without

making it a narrative, but by making it a research paper. Putting my conclusions, results, and

experiment questions onto this essay by using rhetorical choices onto my paper.

Based on the comments I received from the readers of my essay, my writing strengths are

stating my thesis statement clear in the introduction paragraph and restating the thesis statement

in the conclusions. Writing a summary and the importance of my experiment, staying on topic, is

one of my writing strengths. My writing weaknesses would be comma splices and staying on one

subpoint in one body paragraph. I could write something about subpoint 1 in subpoint 2, which

can be confusing for any reader. These weaknesses and strengths have been the same since 1301.
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All in all, the most challenging aspect of this essay was finding results and other findings

to enhance my personal experiment onto my essay. The least challenging aspect of this essay was

choosing a personal experiment topic that interested me and created my introduction and

conclusion paragraphs.