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Barbara Ramirez

Oscar E. Martinez

ENGL 1302-217

14 April 2024

Improvement in Writing by Little Changes in My Position Essay

Throughout this reflection I will give some of the most important events in my learning

that I managed to achieve throughout the writing process of my Position Essay. I really managed

to understand several points that I could improve to give my audience a better explanation of

each of my points, always providing evidence of each of the points I was going to discuss and

adding how that evidence supported my position. In favor of parents setting a limit on the time

their children spent on technological devices, as well as cell phones.

During these last four weeks, the process of writing this last paper became much easier

for me, since we had previously done two essays and various assignments in class that helped me

to be knowledgeable about the sources I was going to choose to support my position on the topic

that I discussed. The annotated bibliography helped me know what each of the sources I had

initially intended to help me collect information/evidence for my points discussed, then by doing

the literary review I was able to see how these sources I had were connected to each other and

also which sources had different ideas. Doing research before making the final product like this

Position Essay helped me become more expert and aware of what I wanted to communicate

without confusing the audience of the main point I wanted to discuss. Going by steps until

reaching a final product can be applied in other classes in which I need to be informed about a

topic. For example, in an upcoming science class I may be investigating the reason for some

illness and the disadvantage in the development of a person's life, and to complete this work I
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should investigate several sources that help me write down each one of the things that I consider

important and relevant to my work. In this way of small but important steps I will achieve

complete work in my next projects and classes.

The previous work I did in my research analysis helped me to be more informed about

the content of each of the sources that I was going to implement in my position essay. With these

analyzes I had a point from which to start with this latest work and not be blank or without an

idea of ​what I wanted to communicate. For example, to write my position essay I already knew

that Khan's source talked about children's addiction to certain electronic devices, with this

information I already had my paragraph covered about how cell phones and the addiction that

children have to them harms them in several ways explained in my position essay.

The work of doing research prior to my research and writing points helped me to be

clearer about the ideas and message I wanted to give to my audience. I consider that doing this

"extra" work helped me to have a more complete paper with articles that were peer reviewed and

that contained information that helped me. I can easily apply this in other courses because I will

always require reliable and truthful sources for my work in the future. Doing research on other

people's works means that my final paper has evidence that supports my points of view and that

verifies and helps my audience understand my position on an issue.

Since ENGL 1301 and now in ENGL 1302 I have realized how beneficial group

conferences are, since with these I can be able to see how others see and understand my work

and especially the advice that others can give me to improve the way in which I express my

ideas. In the last meeting we had I was able to make several changes, mainly I can highlight that

my classmates and instructor noticed that I could improve my topic sentences. They also

mentioned to me that I needed a little more evidence in certain parts of my writing. In addition,
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thanks to the conference I had a clearer idea of ​how to make the point of my counterargument.

Also later in class I had the opportunity for my instructor to see how I had that paragraph about

my counterargument and then he recommended that I did not attack the source that much with

my point, but rather that I give it a little more introduction to the point of view different from

mine. With these tips in mind, I improved my topic sentences by making them more complete

and with a controversial tone of the discussed topic, and to my paragraphs I added more evidence

and introduction to the authors of those who I used evidence from their articles.

During the peer review, thanks to Andrea F. I was able to make a few more changes to a

new paragraph that I had added to my position essay. I rewrote my topic sentence and the one

that followed it so that they sounded more connected to the idea I wanted to convey in that

paragraph, and he also suggested that I add more evidence of numbers and statistics in my

paragraphs, so that my audience understood how big the topic was. problem in society and also

in children.

The most challenging thing about this last essay was maintaining a controversial and

strong tone for my point of view, since I had not done an assignment like this in which I needed

to talk about something so controversial that others had to debate my points. The difficult thing

about the topic I chose was that there were not many sources that were in favor of children using

cell phones or technological devices at such a young age, so my resources for my counter

argument were limited. However, I managed to get a source to help me with that part of my

essay. And I also managed to improve the points in which my classmates, instructor and tutor

highlighted to change for a better version of my main writing.

The experience I had during this semester will be of great benefit for my future and my

next classes. There are still details that I have to improve based on my writing, but I consider that
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I am on the right track so I will only continue to improve my writing style and I will remain firm

to the requirements that each essay requires of me.