Ernesto Perez

Dr. Briones

English 1301-160

20 October 2022

Essay 2 Reflection
Something that I learned from doing the first essay was time management. I was not very
efficient in my planning while I wrote the first essay, however I really turned it around while
working on the second essay. Something that helped me out that I learned from another class
however was the annotated bibliography. I was able to learn how to do that from my Univ class
in my freshman year. I’m glad I was able to learn it as it was very helpful while writing the
second essay.
On the other hand, I didn’t really need to know how to conduct experiments like in the
first essay. While the research that I did for the first essay is something that I might use in the
future, I don’t believe it is something that was useful for this essay. Another thing that I did learn
in one of my classes that I do not believe I will use is how to do APA citations seeing as I had to
do MLA citations in this essay. I could use that excuse for anything but that is one thing I came
up with.
Since the topic of my essay was on the Iraq war, I think this can be very useful as I am a
history major at the moment. I will definitely have similar topics in the future and so this serves
as good practice for when I eventually do end up doing that sort of stuff. I was able to take
different opinions from different sources and this is something that I will likely end up doing in
the future.
I believe that the informative point of view that I take in this essay is something that may
not be very helpful in the future. I’m not too sure if I will do this again in the future but I can’t
see it being too helpful currently. Despite that, I will try to keep an open mind on what I learned
from this essay.
The inclusion of the annotated bibliography was something that did make the essay a bit
more challenging. While writing the essay, I had to really think about the sources that I was
using. I couldn’t just grab some random sources that I believed were relevant to the essay.
Explaining how I intended to use the sources was something that also made me more focused on
how I used the sources. It gave them purpose more than anything.
The comments that I received this time weren’t exactly that focused on the content of the
essay. The comments that I received were primarily focused on grammar, and while I appreciate
the comments that I received, I think it may have been more helpful if there was more focus on
the content of the essay. Working with the feedback I received on this essay, I’m not sure if my
strengths or weaknesses are any different. I suppose my grammar is the same as it was
previously so maybe I should work on that too.
I haven’t had any feedback on the first essay yet, so I don’t believe I can answer this
question appropriately. If I was to come up with something, it would most likely be something
such as comments on my citations. I also think that the structure of my paragraphs was not as
effective as it should have been. My ideas were also not very well structured, and the conclusion
of my essay was not as good either. The conclusion did not exactly close anything up, but it was
a bit difficult to find much that connected all these viewpoints that I had presented.
The most challenging part of the essay was trying to structure the essay and all the ideas
that I found. Tying them all together on the conclusion was also something that I found difficult.
I don’t believe the essay was extremely difficult, but I did have some trouble in that regard.