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Hernandez
Moises Hernandez

Dr. Nelson

English 1301

18 October 2022

Reflection Essay 2

Over these past few weeks, I was able to make an overall good 2nd essay thanks to the

many important lessons that I learned from my first essay. The main lesson was to write my

essay on the analysis instead of the topic that I was writing about. For example, my essay 1 was

on a promotional poster for a popular UFC fight however, I spoke more about the fight itself

instead of the promotional poster. In contrast to essay 1, where I went off script, in essay 2 I

completely talked about the Iron Maiden album cover and the details within it. I was able to stay

on task and completely talk about the visual analysis of essay 2 thanks to the mistakes I made in

essay 1.

There were a couple of ideas that I learned from essay 1 that I could not use in essay 2.

However, one of the concepts that I picked up was the idea of using the background of the

fighters involved to infer why the poster positioned them in the way that they did. I used the

origins of the fighters to help viewers better understand the reasoning behind some of the details

found in the poster. Unfortunately, in essay two I was instead talking about an album cover that

had a story of its own. Because of that, I could not add any details outside of the album cover.

After writing essay 2, I realized that I could use some of the concepts that I used in essay

2 and apply them to other courses. One concept includes analyzing the specific topic more than

once to completely understand the full picture. I used this concept while analyzing the album

cover that I based my essay on which allowed me to find details that I could include in my essay
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to further improve it. Another concept includes reading the essay out loud in order to expose

grammar mistakes and sentences that might not make as much sense when read out loud. After

reading my final draft out loud, I realized that I had sentence fragments and grammar mistakes

that unfortunately ended up making my paper not as impactful. Through the use of these

concepts, I will not only be able to completely understand the topic that I am writing about, but I

will also be able to prevent myself from making tiny errors that could largely impact me in a

negative way.

Although there were some concepts that I will fortunately be able to utilize into other

classes, unfortunately, there are other concepts that I will not be able to use outside of English.

Because this second essay was based on a visual analysis, I was able to freely use an album

cover of my choosing as a topic. Unfortunately, I doubt this would apply to other classes as

every class has its own criteria and standards. Although some classes might include the prompt

of writing a visual analysis essay, there is no guarantee that I will get the same freedom as I did,

writing essay 2 in English 1301. For that reason, I believe that some of the concepts will not be

appropriate in other classes as they were in this essay.

I was able to improve my essay through the use of analyzing the visual text because I

used a text that I found interesting. Being able to use a topic that I am fond of allowed me to

write at the very top of my ability. This is shown in my essay 2 final draft as I was able to

completely bring out all the details within the album cover. From the background to the

characters involved, I was able to combine these elements within the paper and use them to make

great conditioned paper. After writing this essay, I have realized that I can write a great paper if I

base my writing around a topic that I have personally put time into.
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The comments that I received from this essay allowed me to understand more about

myself as a writer. Based on this essay, my strengths include being able to stay on task,

delivering my message in every paragraph, and having a strong thesis statement. Some of my

weaknesses however, include the repetition of words which caused some parts of the paper to

sound confusing, and sentence fragments. My strengths are different from my first essay as I was

not able to stay on task and I did not have a clear thesis statement. My weaknesses however,

stayed the same because I did make some of the same mistakes in my first essay as I did in this

essay.

If I’m being honest, I feel confident that Dr. Nelson will commend me for this essay as I

gave it my all to make this essay a successful visual analysis. I know last time, Dr. Nelson stated

that my first essay had the potential to be a genre analysis essay but it wasn’t completely there.

This time however, I feel like Dr. Nelson will acknowledge that this essay was indeed a visual

analysis essay. Besides that, I feel like she will note some of the grammar errors that I made as I

did unfortunately make some errors. But apart from that, I feel like Dr. Nelson will indeed like

my visual analysis essay and give me a passing score.

Throughout this essay, I naturally came across parts that were challenging and not so

challenging. The most challenging part about this essay was probably the very beginning of

coming up with what to talk about. I found the beginning the most challenging because when I

first start my essays, I have a hard time gathering my ideas and combining them to make sense.

Besides the beginning, the least challenging part about the essay was writing about the details

found within the album. This album cover holds many unique details which as a result, prevented

me from running out of ideas to talk about.

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My identity as a writer evolved as a result of writing this essay because of the knowledge

and concepts that I consumed. I learned how to stay on task while constructing my essay without

drifting off from my topic, which as a result considerably improved my writing. In addition to

staying on task, I learned how to make a clearer thesis statement that allows me to deliver my

point. And lastly, I learned that I have the potential to create incredible papers if I write about

topics that interest me. Thanks to the new knowledge that I have consumed, I learned to combine

the many concepts I gathered from this essay into helping me reach a high potential of the writer

within me.
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Works Cited

Hernandez Moises, Visual Analysis on “Iron Maiden’s The Number of The Beast”. 13 October

2022. English 1301, Texas A&M International University, Student Paper.

Hernandez Moises, Genre Analysis on “Ultimate Fighting Championship” Final Draft. 20

September 2022. English 1301, Texas A&M International University, Student Paper.