Reflection Paper Outline

Emily Sefcik

Jenifer Zukowski

English 121

Reflection Paper Outline

1.     What goals did you have at the beginning of the semester?

To practice my writing capabilities.

2.     Which goals did you accomplish, and which do you still need to work on?

Accomplished the ‘practice writing’ bit. I need to work on proper citation.

3.     What surprises did you discover while researching your topic? Have you discovered new information? Any facts you didn’t know? Any sources you never knew existed?

I didn’t know how high fructose corn syrup was processed, the fact that it is processed differently in your body, and how much sugared drinks increases obesity rates.

Learning about the school’s library database was incredibly helpful with it’s impressive amount of scholarly research.

4.     Write about what the best parts of your paper are. What elements of your writing are you most proud of?

The parts that describe a scene with sensational words and terminology.

5.     How do you feel about how you’ve honed your computer/web skills?

There has been a definite improvement. Before this class I rarely glimpsed at a blog, let alone write one. I also know now that word document provides a program that cites your sources in MLA format. Still have to know how to properly cite however. That program tends to need double checking and polishing.

6.     Write about the research process. What do you enjoy? What do you dislike? What is easy or difficult for you? Are you finding what you need? How much time per week have you been spending on research? Is this too much or not enough time? How do you think you can make some adjustments?

I enjoyed learning more about the subject I pursued. Dislike having to cite all my sources. It is relatively easy to write paragraphs about my topic. I spend about fifteen hours total on research, which I consider to be enough as far as writing a paper about it.  Adjustments would probably be focused around doing the paper in certain amounts of time throughout the week instead of doing it in one go.

7.     What are some useful/helpful research hints you’ve discovered about the research process that might be good for other ENG 122 students to know? What would you like help with to make research quicker or simpler?

Go to the library to find good resources and help.

Outline:

Intro/Thesis: Over a semester, I have been immersed in a world of blogs, citations and the wonderful delights of writing out one's thoughts and opinions on topics of my choice. While in this world I've learned how to cite in MLA format,  new places to find valuable research materials, and how to judge whether sources found on websites have good, strong, and reliable foundations or not. I can raise my head  ever so slightly a little bit higher knowing that I achieved my goals and contain advice for future students who might be in need for a little push in the direction like I did. 

I: Goals, accomplishments, and surprising discoveries

a)    Goal: Improve writing capabilities.

b)   Accomplishments: writing skills have improved along with proper MLA citation.

c)    Surprising discoveries: School databases

II: Writing elements I am proud of and computer skills

a)    I enjoy describing the scenario with sensational words and am proud of the parts that have such description

b)   I now know how to post blogs on a website

III: Research Process

a)    It was fun deciding the topic I was going to explore

b)   Disliked having to properly cite all the sources I used to form an opinion and obtain facts about it.

c)    Research process typically took about half a day total which I think is enough for the most part.

IV: Useful, helpful hints to future students

a)    Go to the library to get help or answers to questions as well as good reference materials and depend on the internet when the library isn’t an option.

Conclusion: Overall, it has been a successful semester with a significant improvement in formatting formal essays and being able to find reliable sources of information. It was not an easy breeze of a learning experience but it's left me very grateful to have made it through with the knowledge I now possess thanks to its constructive criticism.

Reflective Essay Rough Draft

Sabastian Stevens

Jenn Zukowski

ENG 121: Composition 1

12/03/2015

Reflective Essay

At the beginning of the semester my main goal was admittedly just passing the class. I knew that I would learn a lot about writing essays correctly, but at the time I figured it didn’t matter much since I would rarely use this information. While this is still true, I found the material to be more interesting than I thought and so I’m rather glad I gained the knowledge. While I don’t know whether I accomplished my main goal or not (although my optimistic prediction is that I did!), I know that I ended up with more than I thought I would when I first entered this class, which is a good goal achievement in itself.

When I first started the research of my topic, part of me thought I knew very little about the inner psychology of relationships and that this was going to be a very new learning experience. As I read through the sources used through my paper however, I realized that through personal experience that I already knew or resonated with a lot of the points made by these sources. However, I still gained many statistics that I could use for my paper and was surprised by the number of scholarly database articles that I found. From these articles I managed to learn about some interesting theories, such as the one about opposite gender parents fostering stronger relationships in their children.

In the final draft of my research essay I feel like I pulled off a lot of important aspects successfully, on top of improving problems from my previous essay. The biggest problem in my rough draft that I think I refined the best was the logical flow between my thesis and the rest of my essay. I noticed that in my rough draft that the thesis referred to friendships and the rest of the paper focused more on relationships in general. Thus, I changed the thesis and the other parts of my paper that referenced “friendships” when they should have referenced “relationships”. Another thing I think I did well on in my final draft was using the correct amount of pathos, logos and ethos. This was another aspect of my paper that was severely flawed in my rough draft but was patched in my final draft. Considering that my instructor made those particular criticisms clearly on my rough draft, I’m sure she will appreciate those parts of my paper the most, as well as the well-done citations that she usually loves to see.

As far as my computer skills go, I already had a high level of proficiency with computers at the beginning of the semester. That and the fact that this class was mainly focused on word processing and blog posts means that at best, I honed what I already knew. I also knew a lot about the basic research process since it was shoved down my throat during my high school and middle school years. However, I honed my abilities in this area a LOT. I came to realize that a basic understanding of the research process did not equip me well for writing great essays. I needed to learn the inner workings of MLA formatting and using good sources, which I eventually came to learn right around when the research essay final draft rolled around. I still feel like I could make improvements in almost every area (especially the research department), but for now, my current knowledge should be satisfactory.

There are many aspects of the research process that are absolutely critical for students to master, such as correctly citing sources and using informative and relevant sources to make a paper more interesting and credible. I do like the satisfaction of implementing all of the important aspects of a paper using the research process, as well as reading the final creation. However, I do not enjoy the research process for the most part. Looking through large articles for relevant and powerful information is a tedious task and citing other people’s work is needlessly complicated. Fortunately, I felt like I got enough time to effectively create my paper and there were many useful assignments to facilitate our learning. Overall, though, I think the research process needs to be less complicated so that there doesn’t need to be so much resource devotion to making a “correct” essay.

Rubric Assessment Sabastian

Rubric Assessment Sabastian

- Thesis Statement: I think that, according to the guidelines on the rubric, my thesis statement is pretty solid. It is well narrowed down and specific, while being identifiable. However, I think I will change it a bit in order to suit the content of my essay more, and to make it more arguable.

- Academic Style & tone: The tone of my paper stays pretty professional while still suiting the audience. However, it is in my best interest to get rid of some of my personal anecdotes and replace them with statistics to make the paper more academic.

- Clarity/Coherence: My paper does a good job of explaining the concepts in my thesis while connecting them in a logical manner. However, some of the points mentioned stray away from my current thesis and break the logical flow of my paper. I will fix this by changing my thesis slightly and explaining some of the more questionable bits.

My Essay vs. Rubric Scoring

Bragging about one's own work may not come as easily to some as it might for others but focusing on their good points is a probably a good exercise for the soul....probably.

Thesis:
I believe my thesis statement would fall into the 'A' category according to the rubric since it is easily identifiable, has a topic to discuss, and a reason why people should be discussing it.

Documentation:
Oh the agony of citing. However, I think that I am slowly getting the hang of it and have worked hard at correctly citing my sources. That said, there seem to still be a few minor flaws to work out but nothing too extreme, so this particular part of the essay would probably fall under a 'B'.

MLA format:
 Sadly, despite a lot of work put into my 'Works Cited' page, I forgot one minor detail. Putting in Times New Roman format. So due to that it would probably fall under the 'B' category since the rest of it has been done properly. 

3 Improvements to Draft

Sabastian Steven's Draft:

• His grammatical forming of sentences has been dramatically improved since his last rough draft, with the idea being better represented and much more engaging.
• He cut back on the use of "I, we, and our" which really contributed to a broader use of vocabulary which vastly improved it, though I am still slightly uneasy since those words were not taken out of the paper entirely. However, they now contribute more to the paper in this latest version.
• Added a tab space at the beginning of the essay. I think that was merely a typo, but that still made it look a lot better.

My Rough Draft:

• I refined my sentences more here and there in the hopes of making it "flow"better, easier to understand, and hopefully more engaging.
• I added in another paragraph that gave an uplifting look on the situation.
•  Also added in a few more references from the school's database.

Rough Draft Improvements

Rough Draft Improvements

My rough draft: 

- I was told to take the many instances of you, our, we, etc. out of my paper in order to make it sound more professional. Doing this also took out some redundancies in my paper.

- I was told that the opposing side of my paper was weak, so I added a personal experience of mine and another argument for the counter-argument.

- I noticed that there was quite a few parts of my paper that could be reworded. I changed those parts to either be more informative or more engaging for the reader.

Emily's rough draft

- Another paragraph was added about alternative sodas that companies are making in order to meet the demand for sodas made with real sugar. This paragraph is informative, but I feel it distracts from the main point and should be shortened.

- More statistics were added to the paper, particularly one about how bronchitis tends to develop in people who consume lots of soda sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. These new statistics help even more with the credibility of the paper.

- I noticed in this paper that some sentences should be re-formatted since they ran on too much or were in the wrong place. Emily made some of those changes, such as in the first paragraph which separates "product" and "but", and it is easier to read this way.

Chapter 17 Reading Reveiw

Chapter 17 Reading Review

As Thanksgiving break comes ever closer, I am very grateful for the short chapters. The content was repetitive as most textbooks are but it had good insight as always. I appreciated how they mentioned that most plagiarism is unintentional and the examples of how to properly paraphrase, summarize, and quote were all good reference points that I will keep in mind as I finish our current assignment. 

Synthesizing, the process where one combines both summary and paraphrasing with one's own observations, was definitely a new concept to me though admittedly I probably have already done that more than once in my lifetime without realizing it. But now I know.

Overall, the chapter had very helpful examples that I will refer to in the future.