Villarreal 1

Paulina Villarreal

ENGL 1302 101

Dr. Sharity Nelson

5 December 2022

Everything But Perfect: A Reflection

As the semester comes to an end it is important to reflect on where you are and where

you were. I entered my first day of ENGL 1302 scared of the challenges and level of difficulty

this course would entail. I was not wrong when I imagined it would be difficult. ENGL 1302 is

more difficult than ENGL 1301. ENGL 1301 was a struggle for me since I was just getting used

to an English course at a university. The only English classes I had previously taken had been

fairly simple as they were assigned to me in my high school years. Adjusting to ENGL 1302 was

difficult in the way that the essay topics were much more challenging. The essay topics forced

you to think harder and learn a whole new style of writing for all three of the assigned essays for

the course. The professors helped all throughout the semester guiding us through our drafts and

giving us feedback on how we can improve our writing. Although this is true, the hard work was

done by my fellow peers and myself.

It was difficult to balance life and school since even now at my second year of university

I struggle to accept that school takes up the majority of my time. In high school I was used to

dedicating maybe thirty minutes to complete my schoolwork and managed to achieve

exceptional scores. University is very different. With me not wanting to accept that schoolwork

was taking up most of my time I continued working my full-time job and dedicated my nights to

schoolwork. For my second year at a university, I now dedicate complete days to schoolwork
 Villarreal 2

and have cut back on work since I am now only working a part-time job. I also find myself

losing sleep for the reason that I am up studying for an exam or completing schoolwork.

Throughout my time in ENGL 1302 I reminisced on the skills and techniques I had previously

learned from ENGL 1301. Those skills are reflected in my work all throughout my portfolio.

My first essay was a research essay based on an experiment. The goal was to join a

scholarly conversation on a topic. My experiment was based on caffeine and cognition. I wanted

to find out how different forms of caffeine affected the body. My first draft was rough. I simply

recorded my results and added an introduction and conclusion to my essay. I included one

citation from the article I had read because I knew I wanted to use it. The citation stated that

caffeine can increase anxiety in susceptible individuals. This was relevant to my essay because

my subjects’ results included feelings of jitteriness and trouble focusing. As I went on to

complete my second and third draft I elaborated further on my results and added a discussion

section for each caffeine used. After not seeing my first essay for some time I realized that I

could now edit my essay further with the new skills I had acquired throughout the semester. For

my final revised draft, I changed the title of the essay since I no longer enjoyed the original. In

addition to this I made structure changes and made sure everything was MLA formatted. Within

the essay I strengthened my introduction as I thought the original was weak.

My second essay was a research analysis essay. The purpose of this essay was to

understand multiple views of a topic in one area of research. The topic was left to be decided by

each student so we could further engage in the essay. I chose abortion as my topic for this essay.

Going into this I chose abortion because I knew the topic was so controversial. I thought it would

be the best option to gather enough information on both sides of abortion. In ENGL 1301 we

were taught rhetorical analysis. This skill helped me in writing this essay as I was forced to dig
 Villarreal 3

deeper in the scholarly conversation. I was able to present all information with the ability to

elaborate on the scholars’ findings. Abortion had also heavily been on my mind because Ken

Paxton was working on making abortion illegal. In my first draft of this essay, I presented

information scholars in the medical community had to say on abortion. In addition to this I

included how the government had recently been getting involved on topic again and how Roe v.

Wade was getting overturned. In my later drafts, I elaborated with support from scholars on what

abortion is to medical professionals and to politicians.

My third and final essay was a researched position essay. Continuing with the topic of

abortion I was able to present and convince my readers on my opinion on the topic. It is

important to note that I am pro-choice. For this essay first draft I wrote down all my ideas and

had all the information I wanted to present from my ten sources I had used for essay two. For this

essay I did not exclude was medical professionals had to say in regards to the legal fight on the

topic. My favorite citation used for this essay can be found in my conclusion. It is where Andrea

Cioffi along with other scholars say that we must find the scientific definition as to when a fetus

is considered a human. It is my favorite because of the power it holds. They acknowledge that

science should be the one to define this so that the government can proceed accordingly. Since I

was passionate about his topic this essay was the easier one to write for me. In my later drafts the

only changed made were structural since I tend to make paragraphs lengthy.

The design of my website was simple and organized. I describe in my “A Little About

Me.” Section that I chose the white background with a splash of blue mainly because it reminded

me that not everything has to be perfect. I say this because I put so much pressure on myself to

do everything, I do in life perfect. I do not enjoy knowing that I could have done more or

knowing that something is not correct. This causes me stress about everything in the event that it
 Villarreal 4

is not right. So, this theme for my portfolio helped me to acknowledge every day that I worked

on it, that not everything has to be perfect if I try my best. No one is perfect and no one will ever

be and that’s okay. Another thing that did not bother me in regards to this theme was that the

splash of color was blue. Blue is my favorite color and reminds me of the sea and the sky. So,

this color also brought me tranquility while working on my portfolio.

Some of the activities and homework’s that helped me to revise my essays were the

experiment proposal for essay one as well as a group activity. The experiment proposal helped

me acknowledge what my tasks were going to be. The group activity was to generate three

experiment topics. These assignments influenced my revisions since I did not know where to

begin to write the essay. For essay two the Bui and Deakin activity helped me the most since I

learned how to properly write a rhetorical analysis paper with this activity. Essay threes most

helpful activity was transitioning to an argumentative paper. This activity forced me to think

about my topic in a different way than the way I was viewing it for essay two. This activity

helped me to transition my writing to argumentative not analysis.

ENGL 1302 taught me how to analyze a research paper. This is the most valuable skill I

have acquired from my time in ENGL 1302. I say that because even though I chose such a

debated topic I was able to present both sides. It forced my mind to not automatically think

someone else’s opinion is wrong just because it is different from mine. This skill will be

applicable in future courses and will carry on with me through life.

In ENGL 1302 I also learned how to present an experiment in an essay format. My only

other experience presenting experiments was in middle school for the science fair. That research

is the same but presented differently. I am glad that I have now acquired that skill, but I have
 Villarreal 5

trouble seeing where it will be applicable for future courses. I say this because I am a business

major, I see where this skill may be useful to nursing or science related majors.

My writing strengths have changed over the course of the semester as they do ever

semester. I have acquired more strengths and learned how to write different essays. I now

struggle less with writer’s block and my grammar has improved as well. My weakness now is

learning how to properly structure an essay. I tend to make paragraphs very lengthy because I

write about opposing views on a topic in the same paragraph. A good first step I have taken is

acknowledging that I struggle with that. Hopefully with time I can overcome it and write my

drafts more completed.

I knew that my final for ENGL 1302 was going to be creating a final portfolio from the

start of the course. I had previously created one but not with a website. I was scared but also

looking forward to creating this portfolio, not only because it meant the end of semester was

near, but because I could view my progress more efficiently as well. We were told to use Weebly

to create our website for our portfolio. After viewing the introductory video to Weebly provided

by my professor I felt a little more comfortable using the site. A tip that my professor also gave

us was to use an icon called Scribd document. This helped me upload my documents containing

all my essay drafts, feedbacks, homework’s, and activities in an easier way. What she mentioned

in regards to using this icon was that the viewer could scroll through the upload to view it rather

than having to download it to their system to view it which I thought it to be more convenient for

the viewer. Uploading all the assignments and constructing the website was the most challenging

aspect of the website. This particular reason for the circumstance was that it was the most time-

consuming aspect. Each of my essay tabs contain about 25 sections to them that I had to

construct from nothing. This same aspect was the least challenging because it was the easiest.
 Villarreal 6

After adding all the sections I just had to add the information. The real challenge was within the

information also known as all my essays and reflections, as well as homework’s and activities

completed throughout the semester.

With this essay my identity as a writer has changed in the way that I now know how

acknowledge my writing strengths and weaknesses. At the start of this course, I struggled with

writers block often. Because of this course essays I have learned how to deal with this. I must

research my topic before writing. I used to write everything I could without expert knowledge

and add quotes to my writing in the final drafts of my essay. Researching beforehand allows me

to generate ideas of the topic I will be writing about. This helps me to include many ideas in my

first draft and simply elaborate on those ideas to avoid writer’s block more efficiently. Including

multiple ideas in my first draft helps me reach the word requirements quicker. I often surpass the

maximum with this technique. Editing out sentences in an essay is much easier for me to do

rather than generating new sentences. This course and essay have sharpened my writing skills

and techniques. My time in ENGL 1302 was not wasted as I have furthered my writing skills and

knowledge that will be helpful to me in future courses.