Vélez Rivera 1

Mirelys Z. Vélez Rivera

ENGL 1302-208

Dr. Sharity Nelson

May 2, 2023

Final Reflection

This semester, during this course writing journey I was able to learn many new things

about how to work with my writing process, and what should a proper essay look like. I took all

my learning processes and applied them while revising all my essays for submission to the final

portfolio. Essay one was more based on the experiment you performed on the topic you had

chosen. My topic for essay one was The Result of Atmospheric Pressure, and as the topic

suggested I was going to be conducting an experiment related to the effect of Atmospheric

Pressure on an object. When revising this essay, I tried going true my writing first and fixing any

noticeable grammar mistakes. I had to keep in mind that none of these essays should be spoken

in the first or second person and had to contain a formal vocabulary. Another thing I had to fix in

this essay was the sources and citations, as they were done incorrectly because I did not

understand how they were correctly done at the moment I composed this essay. As for essay two,

the goal was to have the students look at and research a topic and provide information about it by

utilizing different articles as sources and providing citations from them. For its revision, I

decided to attend a tutoring session at the Academic Center for Excellence at Texas A&M

International University, so I could see from another perspective what was my essay missing.

When I read my essay 2 in my head, it sounded pretty complete and because of that, I was

struggling while looking at what needed to be fixed. The tutor helped me out, he fixed some
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grammar mistakes I had made and did not notice like confusing the words: wish with which. And

he also pointed out that in my essay two, I seemed to be defending my point in the conclusion

when it was just supposed to be a research essay. During essay three, I struggled a lot in the

writing process and because of how incomplete was my essay I had to go back and fix a most of

my writing. In other words, I had to remake the whole essay.

When it comes to designing, I really enjoy creating new things like the website we were

assigned to create as the final assignment for the class. For the homepage, I decided to have a

black background so the white words would pop out more and be more visible to the eye. On the

home page, I also decided to include a brief introduction of who I am and what was going to be

explained throughout the website. I also included a link that directed the readers to the Texas

A&M International University website, in case they wanted to look for more information about

the university and the programs it offers. As for the navigation bar, it includes four other extra

tabs that refer to essays one, two, three, and the final reflection. Another thing that people might

notice on the website is that I included some images of the sunsets or sunrise in the pages, I did

so because I think even though writing can be kind of stressful when done on a topic you do not

like to talk about or when you have a deadline, writing can also be relaxing and fun. They also at

the all have at the header a beach coast full of rocks because in the environment there will always

be atmospheric pressure like in essay one, and the sea piracy occurs in the ocean like in essays

two and three.

Even though we are making a new assignment, this portfolio is very similar to what we

were asked to do during the final portfolio for ENGL 1301. The only difference was that I had to

include new information and I was required to work with essays a bit more harder than in ENGL

1301. So in other words, I utilized my old website for the portfolio from Fall semester of 2023. It
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was very helpful having part of the last periods of class time to work on the composition of the

website. Without being able to work on my website during class, I would have been unable to

finish all the website correctly and properly done on time. Peer reviews also played a big role

while composing the portfolio, as with them I was able to go back on my essay I kind of know

what needed to be fixed completely.

The course ENGL 1302 has been very helpful in my learning process toward how to

write a proper paper. I believe I still have a lot more I could improve on and do better, but with

time and more practice, I will eventually get there. Something that I am able to learn, and I will

mention very often, is how to properly cite. I still am not as good at citing in text or in the

bibliography, but at least now I have an idea of how to do it correctly and properly. I was also

able to understand better the MLA format. The way we utilize databases to inform ourselves and

provide evidence for our topic will be very helpful to know in the future, as I will be needed to

perform such things regularly in other courses such as HIST, BIOL, CHE, etc. And as I BIOL

Major I am required to perform lab reposts in which I utilize these techniques.

Though, something I might not utilize in other classes could be needed for me to conduct

the experiment myself. During my freshman year of college, most professors are more likely to

ask me to write something about an article already written rather than asking me to conduct an

experiment myself. Another thing I might not use that I learn in the course of ENGL 1302 is the

MLA format as there might be other professors asking for another type of formatting, such as

APA or CHICAGO style.

Like any other human, my writing has its strengths and its weaknesses. Mainly I believe

what is my strength and weakness at the same time is that when I write I like to include a lot of

information and explications of my topic during the essay and also because of that I can lose my
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reader as they got lost in the explanation and forgot about the rest of the topic. Now when it

comes to weakness alone, I personally struggle a lot with the introduction or conclusion of an

essay, I always end up overthinking the theme and forget about what was I supposed to say.

Resulting in the confusion of the reader. A great strength I have could be that I always tried to

keep as organized with the topics as possible. Of course, there was always someone watching us.

The most challenging part of this website was to not let myself be intimidated by other

people’s essays or presentations. I needed to make my essays look good but not be too

extravagant as I was going to take away a lot of time and I was going to be unable to finish

everything. Another thing that was hard on me but mostly because I am in finals week was to

revise every single essay we did on the class (meaning essay one, two, three). Another thing that

kind of gave me struggle was gaining peoples trust consideration, and, how would other people

acts, jokes or words while utilizing my essay.

This essay helped me to go over in my head about all the things I did during the course of

ENGL 1301. I do not consider myself to be the best writer, I bet there are more than a thousand

people that are a lot better at writing than me. But I least I know that I have a lot more room to

grow to become better more of a writer, and that throughout this class, I have evolved a lot as a

student and a writer. What I know I have to work the most one is in exposing my thesis

statement, providing proper and complete citations, introduction, and conclusions, among many

more.
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Works Cited

Vélez Rivera, Mirelys Zoe. “Effect of the Atmosphere.” February 15, 2023. ENCL 1302, Texas

A&M International University, student paper.

Vélez Rivera, Mirelys Zoe. “Illegal Fishing: Global Impact.” March 12, 2023. ENCL 1302,

Texas A&M International University, student paper.

Vélez Rivera, Mirelys Zoe. “Why is Illegal Fishing Wrong?” April 13, 2023. ENCL 1302, Texas

A&M International University, student paper.