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Rodriguez
Ruben A. Rodriguez

Mrs. Monica Rodriguez

ENGL 1302

5 December 2023

Reflection Essay 2

In English 1302 I have written two essays so far and within those essays I have heard

skills that helped me and my writing. From Essay 1 I learned how to write an annotated

bibliography and from that i used those skills in my essay 2. Skills such as annotating helped me

with my analysis of my second essay however, I found no use for my classes regarding their use

contributing to my essay writing. For example, my other classes are History and Math and from

those I only gained what was learned from that curriculum. Essay 1 was great use to being the

foundation to my second essay and even more so guiding me through my final essay.

However, there were skills that couldn’t translate to my second essay from my first and

those were the format of the annotated bibliography and all that it entailed like its structure and

quoting. This is due to the fact they are entirely two different types of essays and although they

were on the same sources, its format made it a whole new essay. From my other classes stated

previously, Math and History, I learned nothing that could aid me in my writing. For example,

from history I only learned historical events and its figures and from math I only learned

numbers and problem solving. Thus, making them unhelpful on my essay writing journey.
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Furthermore, I gained a lot from Essay 2 that helped my understanding of different

writing that I could use in future courses. Courses that have to do with writing and even just

understanding material and its sources. For example, it helped heighten my senses of reading

material and translating it in the way it is being asked. This would make it easier for my

understanding is improved leaving me to write what I learned.

In contrast, Due to the course being an English course there is only so much that I could

use from Essay 2 for my other courses. The things I learned from my second essay such as the

analyzing of several sources strictly on the topic I chose could only take me so far outside of the

course. For example, other courses wouldn’t ask for these intense essays so having this high of a

difficulty essay would be redundant in my other courses.

Furthermore, from the creation of the annotated bibliography and the research analysis

came my improvement on writing and my foresight for future writing. Before I only knew what I

learned from the previous English course. Now I know how to write an annotated bibliography

and a research analysis and what they both entail. Furthermore, these essays help me for my

future writing tasks because they are so intricate and my future writings might not ask for so

much, deeming these writings to be more than useful. For example, my future courses won’t be

English courses but in fact business courses which won’t ask for much in terms of writing. This

makes the annotated and analysis essay more than helpful for my future writing tasks.

In addition, from the comments I got from the readers of my essay I learned that even

though I know how to write these essays it doesn’t mean I was perfect at it. I still have a lot to

learn in terms of structure and vocabulary. My strengths from the feedback were my ability to

put what useful information there was in the specific sources. For example, I was good at writing

down what was necessary information in terms of answering each paragraph with its correlating
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source. In contrast my weaknesses were my time and my inability to structure the information.

For example, this sentence from my annotated bibliography, “The authors make it apparent that

being obese doesn’t fit with feeling better and making better health decisions. In order to boost

self-esteem and overall, one’s life they must have a healthy balanced diet paired with exercising

(9)”. I feel I could’ve worded this better but due to the time I had I was unable to do so in

between drafts. These weaknesses and strengths are the same due to the time I had in between

essays and personal reasons which made it difficult to give my second essay the time it needed to

be a well written essay. Compared to 1301 there wasn’t much change since life gets in the way

of things making it difficult to truly give the deserved time these essays need. Id say in terms of

having a better idea of different essays is definitely something I have achieved. I know now how

to write more types of essays than before such as the annotated bibliography and the research

analysis.

In addition, from the comments left from the readers of my first essay I feel that it will be

the same for my second essay due to the time I spent able to efficiently write on the material. The

feedback that will be the same would be my ability to structure properly and the comments that

would be different would be regarding my quotes and citing. I do feel that in my second essay I

quoted and cited better than my first and for that I feel it will do better in terms of feedback. For

example, this half of my paragraph on one of the sources in essay 2, “With one group of people

regularly exercising and the other group not (1). Evidence shown in figure 6 resulted in siding

with working out (8). “High levels of circulating low-density lipoprotein (I.D.L) cholesterol is a

major risk factor predisposing to atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) (2).” With that

just being a third of one of my paragraphs I can say that it is better done in terms of quoting than

my first essay.
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Lastly, the most challenging aspect of this unit was finding the time to write these essays

with efficiently structured and understanding paragraphs. It was difficult to find sources that

pertained to my topic and even more so fully understanding it and translating it to my writing.

For example, I struggled to write formally which led to me stumbling over the same sentence and

not progressing further into the article. For example, these sentences from my second essay,

“Almost 80% of the world’s risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes are fueled by an

unhealthy diet (2). “Cardiovascular disease is an epidemic driven by type 2 diabetes and the

metabolic syndrome””. I feel that beforehand and after I was stuck on the same subtopic of the

article, I failed to fully capture what the article read. The least challenging aspects were quoting.

It wasn’t hard to quote a few lines to further strengthen my writing and it helped get me back on

track when I was stuck on a thought. It helped because I was able to use a lot of it and in my

case, I used it when I was stuck. For example, almost all my paragraphs in my second essay have

a lot of quotes because they helped as breakers in between thoughts which fully captured the

reason of the articles.

In conclusion, I learned a lot from both essay 1 and essay 2 and from that have improved

my work as a writer. I encountered a lot of bumps throughout the way but nevertheless have

learned from my mistakes and have built upon them. Confidently I can say that my future essays

will be guided with the knowledge I have gained throughout English 1302 so far.
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Work Cited

Rodriguez, Ruben, “Annotated Bibliography.” 5 December 2023 ENGL 1302, Texas

A&M International University, student paper

Rodriguez, Ruben, “Essay 2 final draft ENGL 2.” 5 December 2023 ENGL 1302, Texas

A&M International University, student paper