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Santino Zertuche

Dr. Lindberg

ENGL 1302 - 102

30 Apr. 2024

Final Reflection Essay

Throughout this course, English 1302, I learned many different skills, most notably how

to borrow someone's work properly, conduct academic research, navigate a database, and

evaluate my sources. With these skills, it helped me succeed in completing my assignments and

papers. When creating my research, it is crucial to borrow one's work to support the claims

stated. Not only that but within a scholarly community, we build trust with our readers if we

borrow someone's work correctly; however, if borrowed incorrectly, there are significant

consequences. For example, one will no longer be credible or trusted by one's future audience,

which not only will affect one's credibility, but one can also risk committing plagiarism.

Plagiarism can result in more severe consequences, such as disciplinary actions or failing grades.

Moreover, while conducting academic research for my essays, I learned how to select trusted

peer-reviewed articles effectively. By doing this, I effectively used peer-reviewed articles and

implemented the information into my research. Additionally, I learned how to navigate within a

database, as well as how to use the keyword selection method effectively. Doing so, helped me a

ton because not only did it make the search more efficient and on point, but it also reduced the

time it would have taken to find the articles I wanted to use. For further context, using the

keyword selection method took off the ability to type in many different things in the search bar

when looking for articles on my topic since even a single word can change the results in the

database. Yet, after looking through various searches and articles, I found exactly what I needed
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for my essays. Continuing, something I also learned was how to accept feedback and implement

that feedback into my paper. Feedback was given by my peers and professor. By doing this, it

helped me open my eyes and see details I could not have seen on my own, not only that but by

implementing other's feedback, it helped my essay be more substantial. Also, I just realized, that

something that I learned about the academic research process is to always have an open mind and

constantly ask yourself questions because throughout this process one is starting to obtain new

ideas and new perspectives that can help one get to their goal. For example, when I was

researching the unethical way humans use animals for entertainment, I kept asking myself

“Why?” because I needed to understand the perspective from everyone’s side, even those who

are causing harm to the animals. Because by having this open mind, it allowed me to truly

understand the situation at hand. Lastly, I learned how to evaluate my sources critically. Doing

this enabled me to trust their credibility and relevance to my research when it comes to research.

Throughout my time in class, we did not do assignments; however, we occasionally did

weekly group quizzes. During these quizzes, we went over many topics that helped me get a

further understanding of the academic research process and how to work through it. Most

notably, one of the topics on the quizzes was over citations. Doing these quizzes taught me why

it is essential to learn how to cite properly and why styles such as MLA and APA matter. For

example, we once had a quiz that went over the MLA style and taught me the MLA rules and

how it makes it different from other writing styles. Additionally, the fifth quiz we took during the

semester covered quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. All of which are vital components of

the academic research process. Moreover, the quizzes we took were very interactive; within these

quizzes, we had to look over sentences and citations and figure out what was wrong with them,

that is, if they had any mistakes. Not only that, but we also went over things such as patchwriting
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and why we should do it because it can lead us to plagiarism. Even if these topics have been

introduced in ENGL 1301, it is helpful to refresh one's knowledge. Lastly, though they seem like

basic topics, the quizzes also went over sentence formatting and learned how doing it right can

change your whole project, because having solid sentences is an excellent start to making a great

piece of writing. So overall, even though we did not have any or much homework in class to help

us, we had weekly quizzes which helped me get a further understanding of the academic research

process.

Something I learned about academic research is the ability to find the right articles. In

this case, for ENGL 1302, we were tasked to find five articles that go along with our chosen

topic. My topic was about the unethical way humans use animals for entertainment, I had to find

articles that had the idea of that more or less. With this knowledge, I was able to apply it to my

other classes like Zoology and Gratitude and Imperfection, where I had projects that required me

to find/search for topics that went hand in hand with the topic researched. Additionally, for my

UNIV class, I had to gather/research articles to learn about anxiety. By learning that academic

research skill, I was able to gather articles I knew were trustworthy and were going to get me to

my goal. But overall, I think the academic research process is very beneficial to classes that are

research-heavy, like biology, history, nursing, philosophy, etc.

Throughout the semester, we were taught many different things about the writing process

from beginning to end. In this case, some things I learned and would like to mention in this

portion is the importance of pre-writing and brainstorming, having a solid thesis, the usage of

feedback given by my professor and peers, the importance of considering I have an audience, the

importance of transitioning, and the importance of proofreading. So, to start with, I learned the

importance of pre-writing and brainstorming. By having a good outline (foundation) of what I

want to write, helps me have organization and ideas on the main points I want to talk about and

helps me keep the right structure throughout my essays. On the contrary, one time, I was

beginning to write an essay without any pre-writing, brainstorming, or planning. So, because of

that, the organization of my essay tended to have a loose structure that would shift to different

ideas and points, which resulted in a confusing essay. On the other hand, later ahead, instead of

writing, I started by writing my ideas and main topics and brainstorming, which resulted in a

well-structured and organized paper. Similarly, while having an outline beforehand is good,

having a solid and clear thesis is a crucial element to having a good paper. The reason behind its

importance is that it makes it easier for the reader to understand what the main topics of the

paper are going to be. However, that can only be accomplished if the thesis is well-structured.

Additionally, I also learned to work on my thesis statement, and using the feedback given to me

by my peers and professor helped me accurately reflect the main idea(s) of my paper. Not only

that, but I also gained an understanding that there are readers who will and are going to read my

work. What I mean by this is that I must be considerate about my tone, language, and content

towards the audience. So, being able to make my writing suitable for my audiences is something

of utmost importance. Continuing, I also learned that transitioning effectively from paragraph to

paragraph or idea throughout my essay creates connections between my ideas. So, focusing on

making my transitions flow smoothly maintained cohesions, made my writing flow smoothly,

and helped my ideas be connected. Funny enough, as I am writing this paper, I just realized the

importance of editing and proofreading my work once I have finished writing. I remember one

time when my professor taught/told me that I should go over my work and give myself time to

come back and see what I have written because that is the key to spotting mistakes, even small

ones that are hard to notice. Not only that but when we look back at our writing right after we
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finish, our brains do not see all the flaws because we still have ideas flowing fresh in our minds.

This is why my professor suggested that I should give myself time when revising and editing.

Also, it is easily noticeable whether an essay has been proofread or not. These are only some of

the few things I learned about the writing process throughout my time during ENGL 1302.

As mentioned before, unfortunately, we did not have much/homework; instead, we had

group quizzes. However, to give a quick rundown, these quizzes helped me understand the

writing process because they helped me gain a further understanding of the academic research

process, citations, how to properly cite, how to have the correct MLA format, quoting and

paraphrasing, proper sentence formatting/structure, revision, structuring, and overall how to

make solid sentences. With these topics given by the quizzes, it helped me get a better

understanding of the writing process when it comes to research. To go more in-depth, and as

mentioned before, one of the quizzes that did help me out in the writing process was one about

citations. With this quiz, I was able to get a better and further understanding of how to properly

cite other’s work, ideas, and content. Also, by doing so, it helped me avoid getting plagiarized.

Not only that, but because of one of the quizzes I was able to understand the complexities of the

structure of sentences, which as a result helped me get solid, strong complete sentences.

In my time with both ENGL 1301 and ENGL 1302, both have taught me and fostered

critical thinking and analytical skills essential for academic writing. However, ENGL 1302

challenged me to engage and delve into deeper textual analysis and critical interpretation of

literary texts. In 1302, we had to keep these same skills but also learn how to gather information

from different points of view on a topic. By engaging deeper into a text, I got to truly understand

it and the various opinions on it. I had to write a position paper for this course, which made use

of skills from 1301, such as having evidence, but I added to those skills by using them to choose
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a side on the problem I was researching. Not only that, but something I learned in ENGL 1301

that was built upon even further in ENGL 1302 was the usage of citations. I know I keep on

repeating myself, but I struggled with formatting the structure when it came to putting them on

my works cited. Still, throughout the semester, because it was worked upon, I was able to better

understand how to format my citations. Lastly, something that was worked upon in ENGL 1302

and taught in ENGL 130l was, in general, the MLA writing format. Though it may seem simple,

the MLA format has many details that make it different from others, so by working on it, it made

it easier to not miss those small details and have an efficient MLA formatted paper.