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Kaitlyn Mata

T. Briones

English 1302.261

6 March 2024

Reflection Essay #2

In writing this essay, I learned that I needed to be thorough with my research. What I did

was review my initial annotated bibliography and try my best to categorize them. I took note of if

it was an experiment, study, or just an article that backs up an argument with facts. These would

be my guidelines on how to relate each and every one of my sources. Other than English, this

method of research between sources can be really helpful. By sorting your sources, it makes it

easier to know what to cite and where exactly in your paper. After doing this with my

bibliography, I was able to determine which sources best fit my literature review and which ones

I could omit. I ended up omitting two out of ten of my sources, as they were not as well

connected to my other ones.

I was also able to use my annotated bibliography as a quick mind refresher for my

articles. Doing the bibliography also served as a brief introduction to my sources before I really

delved into them for my literature review. In writing my summarizations, I also got practice on

writing in a non-biased way. This paper was not supposed to be “proving” or “promoting” any

sort of argument, as that is reserved for our third and final essay.

Writing this literature review has helped me with writing impartial essays. It also helps

me establish links between each source. When writing a persuasive essay, these links can be very

important in proving your point, as you are going to want more than one source to back up your
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claims. Literature reviews can also be helpful to summarize your sources as a whole in a concise

way. When researching, this can be very helpful when looking at your sources at a glance.

I am always excited to receive my feedback from my instructor. I already have the

foundation in the first draft, I just need to tweak it a bit. One of the main criticisms I got from my

instructor was the formatting of a few things. For one, I put the titles of the articles in italics and

without quotation marks. I went into my draft and made sure to remedy this error. I also had

some formatting issues when making in-text citations, so I made sure to fix those as well.

Another note that I got was to incorporate my quotes into my sentences more instead of just

putting them outright. I made sure to do this with all the stand alone quotes I saw.

The peer review was also very helpful to me. Having it come from a peer can make me

feel a bit less anxious on whatever criticisms I get. They also might be able to pick up problems

that the instructor did not see. One critique I got was that I was one source short. I went back in

and made sure to connect another source, even if it was brief. I also got told that my paragraphs

were a bit cluttered. As a result, I divided one of my longest paragraphs into two separate ones.

Another small note I got was to change the date to the day of the due date. This makes complete

sense to me and made my essay feel a bit more professional.

The most challenging part of this essay was starting it. I was initially extremely

overwhelmed at the prospect of reading and connecting each of my sources. But, I took it slow

and looked at the ways I had categorized them. This tip had helped me break down the work I

had to do. Another challenging aspect was determining which information was irrelevant. I did

not want to sound too repetitive, but with each source surrounding the same topic this was a bit

difficult. I also tend to get intimidated by the word count. But as soon as I get the ball rolling, I

can write a couple hundred words in a short amount of time. The least challenging part was
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summarizing what I had read. I basically just rehashed my annotated bibliography and what my

sources said. This essay did challenge me a bit, but it was nothing too difficult.