Reflective
Essay (Final)
English 101 has
assisted me in my writing. I came into this class only knowing how to do basic
writing and this class. As the class progressed, I learned more about the
aspects of writing, such as the different types of research papers, and the different
places where the claim and the thesis can go in an introductory paragraph. As a writer, I started off knowing about certain research
aspects and basic writing. I usually write creative essays, and poems. My
writing skills were good in my opinion due to the fact that I wrote pages and
pages of details for my stories, but once I got some of my papers back I realized
that I needed work on my writing. As I learned more in the class, my writing
started to improve and a great example of my improvements was on the research
paper that we had to do.
The preconceptions that I had about
writing was the same in every English class: summary in the introduction with a
thesis or a claim, body paragraphs consisting of the evidence and explanation
of your thesis or claim, and a conclusion summarizing what you wrote in the
essay. Basically the essay formats were the same but there was a deeper meaning
to it. The examples had to be explained in detail and the claim had to either be
the first sentence in the introductory paragraph or the last sentence and you
had to explain the claim so it wouldn't confuse the professor. I thought that
the research paper just had to have your stance on a certain situation and
explain your decision with evidence from sources and then cite the sources both
in the paper and as a works cited pages so the reader could know where the
evidence came from. My opinion of the writing and the research paper were slightly
off. In the regular writing, the examples in my essays weren't explained deep
enough or they didn't pertain enough to the paper. It would also make the
reader a bit confused about what I was writing. In my research paper some of my
things weren't cited and some of the words I used weren't defined well enough.
My weakness in the researching
process was the fact that my topics wasn't showing up well in the case of sources. It took most of my researching time because I had to constantly look
deep online to find a good source I could use to explain my reasons in detail
and not to have my reasons in the paper without any evidence. I think that if I
change the way I come up with my topics, then I would be able to find more
sources that pertain to my research paper.
What I leaned in this class was
mostly in the book we read, Fast Food Nation. The book opened my eyes to how
the fast food company work and the reality of what we eat. It illustrated that
meat products should be taken into consideration when purchasing t Also what I learned
in this class is the different styles of writing. Through all the PowerPoint
slides and the lectures the professor gave, it really helped me become a better
writer. Most of the lectures and lessons the professor taught was the common
errors that everyone made mistakes on and this helped me because I was having problems
in those areas as well.
Now since we had the chance to do
research, I’m pretty confident that my skills will better myself for other
classes and has shown already through my other classes. In my criminology
class, we had two case studies where we had to research and figure out
criminological theories for certain offenders. I used some of the skills I used
in this English class and applied it to my essay for criminology class and
wrote a good paper. The grade that I got for the paper was a 90.
Writing will play a
major role in my future career. Writing in the criminal justice field alone is essential
to the career. I plan on being a forensic scientist and that career consists on
a lot of writing. There will be writing in the form of reports when it comes to
explaining the crime scene, and writing about the lab results that I have to
collect from the crime scene.
I believe that this
class and the professor have shown me how to be more detail with my work to a
certain extent. It has influenced me to challenge my skills as a writer and
continue to improve my writing so that it can be top standard by the time I reach
my career job as a forensic scientist. This class has been a great place to be
at and the atmosphere of the class was welcoming 24/7. I hope I could be able
to have Professor Smith in the fall semester.
