Sanchez 1

Carlos Sanchez

Professor Martinez

ENGL 1302-217

10 March 2024

A Literature Review of Gun Laws in the United States: Reflection Essay

This literature review has taught me so much about academic research. Academic

research has mainly taught me that scholars may not always have the same results or findings

when researching a topic. I have learned to take in these different viewpoints and ideas and to get

an understanding of the argument that is taking place. In future courses, I will be able to

analyze/pinpoint an agreement or disagreement between two sources and will be able to correlate

and describe how they correlate with each other. Throughout the literature review, I list all the

correlations between the scholarly sources mentioned. For example, “A pro that both of these

authors note is that while these programs help reduce violence, they also improve people’s lives

simultaneously” helped me make the connection between the author's research (Sanchez 5).

During the process of writing the annotated bibliography, I learned how I was going to

apply all that knowledge to the literature review. The annotated bibliography really helped me

organize and structure my body paragraphs. The annotated bibliography made the writing

process so much easier because it mainly contained all the information I needed to write the

literature review. The annotated bibliography essentially highlighted all the key points and

arguments that the scholars were making. For example, the annotated bibliography made the

formation of my sub-headers easy. In my literature review, I had the sub-headers: “Benefits of

 Sanchez 2

Stricter Gun Laws, Gun Law Effects on Suicides, Homicides, and Robberies, and Community-

building Programs” (Sanchez 1, 3, 4).

The creation of a literature review essay will help me in my research by helping me

identify the gaps/discrepancies between the research and get a better understanding of the

argument being debated. A literature review essay will help me in my writing by effectively

communicating the findings and claims that the scholars are making. Through the writing

process, I will also be able to analyze and synthesize the information that is being provided in

depth. A strong analysis and synthesis are necessary for there to be a strong and convincing

argument. A literature review will help me approach future writing and research tasks when

comparing or pointing out the differences between each scholar’s research. In the future, when I

must write about two or more scholars' research, a literature review essay could be helpful during

the research and writing process. The creation of this specific literature review helped me find

the discrepancies between each scholar’s research. For instance, “[t]he states with strict gun laws

have a positive impact despite some laws, such as the safe-storage gun laws, that do not have an

impact at all, so when looking at gun laws and their effects, there may be different findings when

analyzing the specifics rather than focusing on the term of gun laws in general” is an example of

a different result (Sanchez 4).

Conferencing and receiving feedback from Professor Martinez have helped me

dramatically improve my literature review essay. The first element he helped me fix was my

sentences, which involved synthesis. Before his feedback, my sentences that involved synthesis

were weak, but after his suggestions and how he explained them, I developed much better-

quality sentences. For example, “[b]oth of the authors argue that while gun laws do have an

effect and yield results, more often than not, the disadvantaged communities showed
 Sanchez 3

disproportional results” is an example of a sentence that has synthesis (Sanchez 4-5). A second

element that my instructor helped me improve upon is my analysis of the evidence. Throughout

my essay, my analysis of some of the evidence mentioned was somewhat bare and did not go

into detail. To fix that, I had to go back to each paragraph that involved evidence and had to

double-check that I properly analyzed and explained the evidence. The following sentence is an

example of the evidence being explained: “[t]he reasoning behind this is that many criminals

seem to act out of necessity when faced with social and economic hardships” (Sanchez 4).

Peer review with my classmate helped me develop an overall better literature review. The

first element that I changed was adding a thesis statement to my introduction paragraph. Because

of Andrik’s feedback, I decided to come up with the following thesis statement: “The scholars’

articles show there are benefits for the American people by strengthening U.S. gun laws and

community-building programs because they save lives, help Americans feel safer, and prevent

increases in mass shootings, suicides, homicides, and robberies” (Sanchez 1). I made this change

because a thesis statement is always needed in the introduction paragraph and because a strong

thesis statement gives the reader a general idea of what the paper will be about.

The most challenging aspect of this writing assignment was picking and choosing what

articles I would include in my essay and what articles to leave out. While some articles were easy

to pair together, I had some problems finding out where to pair some of the articles. The reason

for this is that although they were based on the same argument, which is gun laws, some of the

articles did not pair well together. As a result, I had to be selective with the articles I chose. I

decided to leave out Mustard B. Davis’s paper, which was about the impact gun laws had on

police deaths. I also decided to leave out Jeffrey W. Swanson’s paper, which showed how a law

that was implemented was discriminating against people based on their ethnicity and the color of
 Sanchez 4

their skin. I felt that the other sources were better paired with each other than the sources listed

above. The least challenging aspect of this writing assignment was describing and explaining the

research and evidence. Most, if not all, of the evidence mentioned in the literature review came

from the annotated bibliography. The annotated bibliography made the process of finding and

explaining the evidence easy. Thanks to the annotated bibliography, I already had a general

understanding of all the articles, so it made the analysis portion and the explanation process

simple.
 Sanchez 5

Work Cited

Sanchez, Carlos. “A Literature Review of Gun Laws in the United States.” 2024. Texas A&M

International University, unpublished paper.