Ananya Jain

Professor Freeman

COLWRIT R4B

December 11, 2023

My Reflective Journey Through R4B: Stories of Sustainability

Walking into the classroom on the first day, I expected this class to be like previous

English classes I have taken; I would have many assigned readings and be expected to write

several essays. Little did I know, this class would completely change the way I view the world

and teach me ways to become an efficient researcher.

Throughout my life, I was always taught very basic methods of writing such as

rephrasing the question in your writing and the five-paragraph essay rule. Because this was all I

knew, I saw myself constantly using it in assignments such as the discussion posts for The Future

We Choose, where I would simply rephrase each question, answer it, and repeat for each

question. However, I felt this made my writing too plain and I wanted to learn how to add

complexity.

This class taught me just that. As we went through workshops on effectively synthesizing

sources, paraphrasing, the importance of subordination, the difference between cohesion and

coherence, and many other writing and grammatical concepts, I felt more competent in my

knowledge of writing. When the assignment to write a research paper was introduced, I was

intimidated as I had never written a paper like this before. However, practicing the writing

techniques I learned in assignments such as the Research Proposal and Annotated Bibliography

made me feel more confident and ready to tackle the research paper.
 Before this class, I was familiar with the process of using primary and secondary sources

to conduct research as I participated in a program called National History Day where I created

websites on a research topic of my choice. Therefore, choosing a topic was simple, as I focused

on an area I thought was interesting and unique - vector-borne diseases - and related it to climate

change. I had never before, though, examined scientific journals and used them in my research.

Initially, because of the vast amount of information they contained, these papers seemed

daunting. However, learning how to navigate the parts of a scientific paper, such as the abstract,

introduction, data, and conclusion, allowed me to easily sort through papers I felt would be

useful for my topic and eliminate the ones that weren’t. Furthermore, I was able to format my

paper in a similar way which made it look more professional and taught me the importance of

always using peer-reviewed journals in your research to ensure validity. Conducting field

research, where I interviewed a student part of an environmental consulting group at Berkeley,

also taught me that there are different approaches to research and that sometimes talking to

people can expose you to new perspectives that reading texts cannot.

Equipped with more writing tools and knowledge of the right sources to use to target my

audience, writing my research paper suddenly became fun. One more strategy that helped me

was forming a detailed outline of my paper, which helped me incorporate a subordinate structure,

as once I knew what I was going to talk about, it was just a matter of writing and synthesizing

my sources.

Additionally, this class taught me the importance of revision. The valuable feedback I

received from my peers through peer interviews, from other students in the Chiang Research

Festival, and from Professor Freeman allowed me to address issues I completely overlooked and

make my research paper even better in terms of content and grammar.

 Reflecting on the semester, I can proudly say I walked away from R4B: Stories of

Sustainability with not just profound knowledge of the climate crisis, but also with writing and

research skills that I will keep with me throughout my journey as a researcher in the medical

field.