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Carlos Sanchez

Professor Martinez

ENGL 1302-217

11 February 2024

The United States Wave in Favor of Gun Laws: an Annotated Bibliography Reflection Essay

The first writing assignment taught me that academic research is the process of collecting

and gathering valid information about a certain topic, idea, or discussion. I have learned that

peer-reviewed articles usually, if not mostly, contain factual information, and they are usually

directed to other professional scholars in the field. I have also learned that the sources collected

and used should be reasonably recent because, depending on the topic, the information could

quickly become outdated and misleading. All my sources had to be recent because the topic I

was researching involves laws and regulations, and a topic like this is always being updated and

changing. Because of my knowledge in academic research, I am now able to find and use reliable

sources on any future topics that involve and/or require research. By my research coming from

trustworthy sources, the readers will have more trust that the information being provided is

factual and reliable.

The creation of an annotated bibliography has helped me in my research by helping me

get a better understanding of the problem. It has helped me reflect and realize that there are far

more aspects and viewpoints to a problem than I had originally thought. Furthermore, creating an

annotated bibliography has helped me in my writing by helping me prove my point by using

evidence and research to back up my claim. In my case, the topic I decided to do my annotated

bibliography on was gun laws in the United States. The annotated bibliography prompt helped
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me describe “The article’s thesis statement and purpose of research, the method(s) used to gather

valid evidence to support the thesis statement, the evidence and reasoning used to support the

thesis statement, [and] how the sources fit into [my] research/ how [I] will use it in [my]

research” (Martinez 2). I plan to use these four steps in the future when doing writing and

research assignments. An annotated bibliography will help me find reliable and valid research

and assist me in future writing tasks.

Conferencing and receiving feedback from my instructor have helped me improve and fix

many of the small mistakes I made in my first draft. Thanks to the feedback, I have a much better

and improved final draft. The first element I changed was putting all my sources in alphabetical

order. My professor informed me that for the annotated bibliography to be in proper MLA

format, the sources had to be in alphabetical order. Fixing this small mistake was fairly simple.

Once I finished writing my ten sources, all I did was cut and paste them in the corresponding

order they were supposed to be in. A second element I had to correct was how I did my in-text

citations. Professor Martinez explained that when I am describing something, it does not need an

in-text citation, but when I say an author is stating or claiming something, it does need an in-text

citation. For example, the following statement needs a citation: “They stated that non-profit

programs and community-building programs that address the needs of the people help lower gun

violence and this is all possible with relying on the United States governments laws” (Sanchez).

To correct this mistake, I went back to all of my sources and added an in-text citation to the

sentences I had missed. The third element my professor helped me fix was the title of my paper.

Initially, my title was just labeled annotated bibliography, but this was a problem because the title

was too broad and generic. Professor Martinez helped me develop the title “The United States

Wave in Favor of Gun Laws an Annotated Bibliography” (Sanchez). I made this change to help
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readers better understand what the annotated bibliography would be about. To make this change,

I deleted the original title and put in the title my professor helped me create.

Conferencing and receiving feedback from my classmates helped me improve the quality

of my annotated bibliography. The first element I changed was adding background information

about the author and/or organization to all the sources. I made this change because by adding this

information, the reader will decide, based on their discretion, if the source is credible. If the

article were written by someone specialized or credible in that field, the reader would have more

trust in that source. If the article was written by someone who is not specialized or is not in a

profession related to that field of study, then the reader will have to decide if they want to trust

the information they are reading. The second element I changed was providing more examples in

my paragraphs. Once I was finished writing, I went back to each source and asked myself if the

points stated were clear and informative. If my answer to that question were “no,” then I would

go back and add an example to that paragraph. I changed this because some sources needed more

evidence and context to prove the author’s point further or make the paragraph more informative.

The most challenging aspect of this writing assignment was finding out what method(s)

the authors used to collect the research. I also struggled to choose what evidence to include in the

paragraph and what evidence to leave out. For example, in some of the sources, the author listed

multiple methods, but when I put the evidence to support my claim, not all the methods were

used to get those results. The least challenging part of this assignment was finding the sources

and citing them. All my sources were found through the Texas A&M International University

Sue & Radcliffe Killam library. All I had to do was put in my topic, “Gun Laws,” and select the

peer-reviewed article’s only filter, and the website would make the citation for me (Sanchez).
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Works Cited

Martinez, Oscar. “Annotated Bibliography prompt.” English Composition II, Texas A&M International

University, https://tamiu.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-4822505-dt-content-rid-33477609_1/

xid-33477609_1. Accessed 11 February 2024. Class handout.

Martinez, Oscar. “Working with Peer Review Feeback Worksheet Drop Box.” English Composition II,

Texas A&M International University,

https://tamiu.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_70925_1/cl/outline. Accessed 12 February 2024.

Class handout.

Sanchez, Carlos. “The United States Wave in Favor of Gun Laws an Annotated Bibliography.” 2024.

Texas A&M International University, unpublished paper.