Ortiz 1

Vanessa Ortiz

ENGL 1302-101

Dr. Sharity Nelson

19 September 2022

Reflection Essay 1

In 1301, I learned how to cite my quotes correctly, which I used in my first essay in 1302.

In class, I learned that to cite a direct quote in MLA format you need to put the author's last name

and the page number you found the quote in parentheses, which I used in my first essay in 1302.

For example, in my final draft I cited quotes from the articles like “(Stea et al. 2)”. The last name

of the author is only included if I didn’t write it at the beginning of the sentence. This was really

helpful for this essay and many essays to come because I will be citing a lot, and it’s important

that I am doing it right. (Ortiz, “Running Stimulating Productivity” 1)

Something I learned in another class that I didn’t use in English 1302 is the APA format.

In English 1302, the format that we use is MLA, but that doesn’t mean that in other classes I use

that one as well. For my EDCI 1102 class, I am instructed to use APA format which isn’t super

different from MLA. The main difference is the way things are cited. For example, MLA

citations consist of only the author's name and page number, “(Stea et al. 2)” whereas APA

includes the author's name, date, and the page number. (Ortiz, “Running Stimulating

Productivity” 1)

In the first essay, I learned how to do an Annotated Bibliography. I had never done one

before, and it was really helpful for my essay. For instance, the citations were already in order

and cited correctly so all I had to do was copy and paste them into a new page at the end of the

essay. This is going to help me more in other courses because in case I ever have to write a
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paper, I know what I can do now to be a little bit more organized. Moreover, the Annotated

Bibliography can help by seeing what quotes or summaries I can use in the essay. (Ortiz,

“Annotated Bibliography Handout,” 1-2)

I believe that dividing the first essay into sections is something that will not be applicable

in other classes. For example, in the first essay the subtitles, “Introduction, Methods, Results” are

used, but in my other papers, they're not. Most of the time when I am asked to write essays in

other courses it’s the simple introduction, body, and conclusion format. It’s useful to learn and to

keep information organized especially for this type of essay, however; for my other classes, it

isn’t something that I’ll see myself using. (Ortiz, “Running Stimulating Productivity,” 1-3)

Using an outside research in this experiment was really helpful because it provided a

variety of information and results from people who studied the same experiment as well. It

improved my writing by seeing examples of how they wrote their results so that I can know how

to write mine. For instance, most of the sources separated their result into different sections

explaining how each result was affected by the experiment. I was able to use this in my essay

describing how running affected not just productivity but mental health. This will help me

approach writing tasks in the future by having essays, especially ones like this one, look more

organized and easier to read. (Ortiz, “Running Stimulating Productivity,” 1-3)

Based on the comments I got from my reader, my biggest strength was staying on topic

and giving good examples. They provided good feedback about my sources and I know I

shouldn’t be worried about that. My weakness seemed to be that a lot of my sentences were too

wordy and my discussion lacked a little bit more information about how the experiment was

beneficial. A lot of the time with essays I tend to struggle with conclusions since I don’t want to

exactly repeat the introduction, so that is something that I will work on. My strengths are the
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same as the ones I had in 1301. I was able to give a good source and explain it. (Ortiz, “PR

Experiment and Research,” 1-2)

The most challenging part of this essay was probably finding the sources. I had no clue

what to look for and a lot of the time the sources didn’t talk about what I was researching. I had

to look for sources in between other sources to see if there was anything that could help me. The

conferencing with Dr. Nelson really helped as well since she was able to give more keywords to

look for. The least challenging would have to be doing the experiment itself. I had been wanting

to start running again and this experiment was the perfect excuse to start. (Ortiz, “Running

Stimulating Productivity,” 1-3”

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Works Cited

Nelson, Sharity. “Annotated Bibliography Handout.” 12 September 2022. ENGL 1302, Texas

A&M International University, handout.

Nelson, Sharity. “Peer-Reviewed Workshop” 16 September 2022. ENGL 1302, Texas

A&M International University, classroom activity.

---. “Conferencing Periods” 7 September 2022. ENGL 1302, Texas A&M International

University, classroom activity.

Ortiz, Vanessa. “Running Stimulating Productivity” 16 September 2022. ENGL 1302, Texas

A&M International University, student paper.

---. “Running Stimulating Productivity” Draft 2. 12 September 2022. ENGL 1302, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

---. “Running Stimulating Productivity” Draft 1. 5 September 2022. ENGL 1302, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.