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Juwanna Porras

Oscar E. Martínez II

ENGL 1302-217

14 April 2024

Looking for Clarity: My Journey While Writing a Research Position Essay

In the last reflection essay, I mentioned that the literature review essay was the hardest

essay I’ve ever made so far, however, doing this research position paper was just as challenging

and time consuming. After submitting it I feel satisfied with my job because I did put a lot of

effort in it, but I can’t help to feel nervous about the overall grade and feedback.

Out of all the various things I learned in this assignment, the two most important ones are

first, state my arguments insertad of just explaining the articles that I chose, and second, doing a

good introduction. When I did my first draft, one of the major things I got feedback on was in

my introduction, my instructor explained to me how I was missing one of the most important

things which was the hook, so I worked a lot on that as well as in the context. Personally, I did

have a hard time while creating a hook that sounded dramatic, but I think in the end in turned out

well. As for the context, while I don’t think it was that hard to write, it was still something that I

had a bit of trouble because I felt like no matter what I wrote, it sounded repetitive, thankfully I

think in the end, it turned about good. The things the I learned in this essay will definitely be

helpful in the future assignments from classes like psychology that sometimes require papers

where you have two analyze different perspectives and argument on both of them while

advocating for one of the two perspectives.

In the process of doing a research analysis essay I learned that it’s very important to

choose the right arguments, because those are the ones that will help you support your ideas in
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the research position essay. In my case, most of the articles that I had chosen were very helpful,

nonetheless, when I was looking for the ones, I wanted to use for this final essay, I realized that

not a lot of them addressed what I wanted to advocate for in my researched position essay. For

that, I had to searched new articles that specialized in the analysis that the consequences of the

stigmatization of abortion have on women, as well as the correlation of mental health and

abortion on women while considering the stigmas on this topic. As for the counter sources, it was

a bit hard to find articles that had an opposite point of view as most of them advocated for the

legalization of abortion, however, I leaned that by rephrasing or using key different keywords

could help me find the articles I was looking for.

As some one who is interested in the research field of psychology, all of the essays that I

learned throughout this semester will be helpful, but this last one will be the one that I think I’ll

use the most, because it allows me to argument and put my perspective on a certain topic, and

using sources to back up what I say. While doing this essay I realized the importance of an

appropriate language. For example, in the hook situated in the introduction I was told that it was

not as appealing to read because I was using a very academic language, so I had to make changes

in order to still sound academic but may more dramatic. Also, throughout the essay in the body

paragraphs, specifically in my arguments, explaining myself using the proper words was

sometimes hard because of the language barrier, either way online dictionaries and synonyms

where helpful for me to explain myself in the best way I could. In my government class I need to

do an essay where I analyze and chose a perspective between two economic models, I think for

that assignment this researched position essay will be the best fit, as I think it will be helpful in

presenting my arguments while suing information that backs it up.

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Before the conference I was nervous as I did not feel very confident on my draft. When

my peers and the instructor gave me feedback, they pointed out that I was missing my

arguments, and some citations. At first, I was a bit troubled on how to explain my arguments and

separate the from what articles said, but after the conference was over, the instructor explained to

me that I should elaborate more on my own opinions and gave me some examples. Also, I was

told to change the order from my essay, because I had mixed the counterarguments with the

other articles, so I also changed that order. After adding more arguments that came from me, as

well as some citations I realized that my essay did sound better and was more fluent and easier to

read. Changing the order was also very helpful because it gave more order to my essay which

made it look better and easier to read as well.

My peer was very helpful because he pointed out things that I had not considered even

after making changes from the conference, he explained how I should change some sentences as

they sounded repetitive and where hard to understand, as well as improving my thesis statement

which was long. To correct this, I changed the length of my thesis statement, while trying to

maintain the original meaning which was the stigmatization of abortion as the main factors that

caused mental health issues on women, which proved the necessity for more comprehensive laws

and health care services from lawmakers. Also, to change the arguments that sounded to

confusing, I tried to use synonyms that could help me to shorten my sentences while still

explaining what I was trying to say. Receiving feedback from my peer was helpful in healing me

improve and make changes that I had not considered even after canning things after the

conference.

For this essay, I would say everything had its own challenging level, but what I found the

hardest was to argument on my own without explaining what the articles said. For some reason,
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detaching my own arguments from what the articles were saying was hard to do, and while I

don’t think I did an excellent job on that, I think I did improve a lot in doing them thanks to the

instructor who guided me and helped me explain by ideas in better ways. On the opposite site,

understanding the articles and pretty much presenting their evidence was the easiest thing to do,

because it’s similar to what I had done in previous essays for not only English, but other classes

like History.

In the process of making this essay I realized the importance of the previous assignments

like the lit review and the annotated bibliography because I had already had knowledge from the

topic of abortion as well as an idea on how to present the authors perspectives in the different

sub-headings. And while I did had trouble with the argumentative part and know that I still a lot

to work on and improve, I think I did a good job, and I feel satisfied with my final paper.