Dominguez 1

Jesus A. Dominguez

Professor Briones

ENGL 1302 228

10 April, 2024

Reflective Essay 3

When writing my third essay I needed to develop new ways of approaching my

argument. I had to see it through different perspectives, so I could spot any holes or flaws in it. I

had to use resources written in my annotated bibliography and my literature review. I mainly got

my information from my literature review because I had already developed some arguments on

there that match my view points. I bettered plenty of skills when writing this essay, such as my

research skills. The creation of this essay forced me to go back to my selected articles and pick

out expert quotes that match my argument. I believe that these skills can be translated into other

classes, for example in my UNIV 1302. I have written multiple annotated bibliographies in that

class to better aid my research of my final project. In the semester we will gather everything we

have to participate in this large symposium event. There we will discuss our points, and

arguments to educate people here at TAMIU. The skills I have learned while writing my three

essays and more specifically my Unit three essay have been really useful in my UNIV 1301

class.

While writing my research analysis essay I compiled all the possible arguments and

referred them against each other. I made sure to not be biased or favor any of the arguments. But

when making my researched position essay I was able to pick out my favorite arguments that I

had already written on. This made things way easier for me since I could just favor what I had
 Dominguez 2

previously written and argue against the rest. I wrote about many articles in my research analysis

essay and I was able to include 6 out of the 8 in my research position essay. I was able to cherry

pick the best articles and exclude the filler articles that filled my previous essay. This made my

research position essay the best it could have been because it only provided the best and most

useful information out of all my essays. My skills in choosing the right articles were challenged

when writing this essay, but I know that I was able to make the right decisions.

Over this entire semester we have dedicated our time to researching peer reviewed articles and

using their arguments to help back up our claims. The final step was creating our researched

position essay to be our final statements to a semester's worth of research. I believe that any kind

of experience in something is good, and will have long lasting effects on a person. The making

of this essay was no different, I was able to develop plenty of research, and writing skills to

better my arguments. These are things that will stick with me for a lifetime and will be used in

dozens of other classes in the future. These skills will most likely even translate into the

workforce.

After receiving my first draft I had plenty of improvements to make on my essay. My

professor marked a total of eight corrections on my paper, most of which involved citations, both

intext and on my work cited page. My first correction was the changing of my title for my essay.

I had originally put “Unit 3 Essay: Draft 1,” but the teacher preferred to change it to something

relating to my topic. Another common issue I faced was placing a period after my intext citation.

I would sometimes place it at the end of the quote instead of after the citation, but I was able to

do all of those corrections and better my essay in that aspect. One thing that has always confused

me when writing has been in text citations and it showed in this essay. I never used “et al,” in my
 Dominguez 3

intext citations when they should have been used, but that problem is now resolved thanks to my

professor's aid. And lastly I forgot to title my works cited page. Alongside my professor, a peer

of mine was also able to review and help me better my essay. They mostly focused on the

grammatical aspect of my essay along with some confusing parts in my writing. My classmate

helped mark off filler words, punctuation errors, and told me where I could elaborate more to

help readers. My classmates helped me improve my essay in many different aspects. Having

another person's opinion talk about your essay is extremely useful. The most challenging aspect

of my essay was starting it off, I already had plenty of arguments and I had most of my

arguments well thought out already. All I needed was to type the first few sentences. I also

always struggle with my intext citations, as previously mentioned, but I also have a hard time

writing my conclusion and more specifically my last sentence. The easiest part of my essay was

putting together all of my arguments, this was something I had worked on all semester. The

compiling of all my thoughts onto one page was fairly simple and really fun.

Overall the creation of my third and final essay required a lot of work, planning and

dedication, but the result was amazing. I learned plenty of skills and experience that I will

translate into other classes and beyond.