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Jaden Maldonado

Instructor McCann

English 1301.213

1 May 2024

My English 1302 Journey and Experience

To begin with, from this course and the previous course, I learned that academic research

is easier than I thought it would be, but still hard enough that I need to truly think about what is

happening. For instance, in essay 1, I had to find different research journals that supported what I

was trying to accomplish, however; most of the journals talked about cold water immersion and

did not focus on cold showers specifically. With the skill of academic research, I went through

many different articles to find the best information on my topic. Also, I learned proper borrowing

practices to help support my information in my essays. For example, in essay 2, I had to cite

from many sources to be able to provide as much information as possible on both sides of my

topic. Some assignments that helped me understand the academic research process and how it

works were the invention worksheet. The invention worksheets made be research as much as a

could on my topic while writing down what would improve my essay. For example, in essay 3, I

had to research where I could find any kind of information on my topic. From what I learned

about academic research and its process that can be applied to other courses is how to find the

most information about my topic. To illustrate this, in History 1302, I had a debate preparation

worksheet on the topic of whether it was legal for the South to secede from the Union. My group

had to find all the information we could our side of the debate. With the use of academic research

and its process, I was able to add 7 pages of information on my topic and win the debate.
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In addition, I learned that the writing process is a circular motion. No matter where I

started, I would be able to complete my entire essay. For example, in essay 1, I could not figure

out how to do my literary review, so I saved that for last and was able to make it flow into the

rest of the essay. An assignment that helped me understand the writing process a ton was the

reverse outline that was given for essay 3. The reason this helped me was because it allowed me

to start with what I had at the moment and be able to expand on it with the use of the questions

that were given in the assignment. For instance, in the reverse outline, it helped me write the

entirety of my first two body paragraphs and help me start somewhere on my essay instead of

having a blank page. This learning helped build upon my knowledge of the writing process and

analytical thinking in other courses by showing me the process I need to succeed in my writing.

Also, it helped me be able to write the best possible essays I can for my work. To illustrate this,

in my government midterm, I had to answer three essay questions about random topics the

professor gave to us. I did not know how to start the essays, so I decided to go from the bottom

up since the writing process is a circle and was able to complete them in time. I ended up getting

an A+ on the midterm and was extremely proud of myself for it.

Furthermore, I learned from the process of revising one of my essays that it can be a

struggle to find the correct things to change, but it is very satisfying when I find something that I

could change to make better. Also, my introductions and conclusions could be very lackluster

compared to the rest of my essay. Some of my choices I made when revising essay 1 was to

focus on the conclusion and fix up my literacy review. The reason for these choices was because

I felt compared to the rest of the essay, these two were the weakest links. For example, my

conclusion was five sentences long compared to my introduction which was close to an entire

page long. It did not look right seeing one way bigger than the other. Also, in my literature
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review I made it flow better because I had done it last minute, so to me it sounded choppy and

rushed. For example, in the literature review, I said, “The article mentions that cold showers do

have an improvement on a person’s overall wellbeing and can affect even personality. The article

and the experiment were conducted to find a change in emotional, mental, and physical health”

(Maldonado “Effects of Cold Showers” 2). These two sentences make the end of the paragraph

sound rush because it seems that it just ended abruptly. In the entire essay, it flows smoothly until

the literature review, which throws off everything. Also, the conclusion does not make the essay

end smooth and is choppy.

Additionally, the most challenging part of this course was finding the motivation to be

able to complete all of the essays in time. This semester was harder for me to focus on my work

compared to last semester because I just wanted summer to start and school to end. Also, I had

less time to work on schoolwork because I had more obligations to attend this semester than I did

last semester. If I could restart this semester, I would push myself to give myself more time to

focus on my essay and not finish it at the last minute. I felt too rushed and not something I put

my love and care into. Without those things being brought into my essay, they were not the best

essays that they could have been if I just had set aside one day to do everything. Some challenges

I faced in the research and writing process were finding correct peer-reviewed journals and being

able to incorporate them into my essays. For instance, in essay 2, I mentioned, “Video games

have been improved to the point where many require brainstorming, critical thinking, and

unhesitant decision making” (Maldonado Effects of Video Games 1), which I had trouble adding

to my essay because I did not know how to flow from the quote into something that could give

more information to the reader.

On the contrary, the least challenging aspect of this course was choosing which topics I

wanted to talk about. Everything else about the course was too hard to pick for the least

challenging aspect of the course. The topics I choose this semester were topics I actually wanted

to find more information about since I did these things and wanted to see the effects of them.

One of said topics is finding out if video games can positively or negatively affect the mental

health of teenagers. I found that it does have a massive effect on teenager mental health and

needs to be studied more. In bad cases, it can lead to depression which in turn can lead to

suicidal thoughts and decreased motivation to do anything. However, in the positive cases, video

games could increase cognitive function, reduce stress, and even improve motivation for some

people. Some strengths I discovered in my research and writing skills set are being able to find

anything about a certain topic if I actually tried and I feel that I have good flow in between

paragraphs of my essay. For example, in essay 3, I said “Because of this research conducted and

gathered, video games have been proven to reduce anxiety” (Maldonado Positive Effects of

Video Games 2) and transitioned it into “Additionally, computerized games are used to improve

motivation in young adolescents” (Maldonado Positive Effects of Video Games 3). Though the

transition is basic, I feel the flow is still pretty good.

However, revising my draft was definitely one of the hardest challenges of this course. I

had the most trouble putting my thoughts into words. Compared to last semester, I had more

trouble revising this essay than having to revise all three from last semester. I knew that I had to

change the literature review, but I could not figure out how to word it correctly and make it flow

into the rest of the essay. I decided to actually restart most of the literature review and work from

scratch to fix it because of how bad it was in my eyes. For example, I wanted to change the way I

started the paragraph, so I deleted everything except the quotes. I feel that my literature review is
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better than what it was at the beginning of essay 1. I also had trouble changing my conclusion

because I did not know what to add or remove from it. The least challenging thing with revising

my essay was being able to find what I needed to change. I quickly scanned through the text, and

I was able to identify which parts of the essay needed to be worked on since it brought down the

value of the other ones. The literature review and conclusion were definitely the weakest links in

the masterclass performance I cooked up in essay one and because of them I ended up second

comparing essays to my friends. With these two problems being changed, I now know that I will

be taking that number one spot from my friend and securing my rightful spot on the throne.

In addition, some choices I made to communicate course concepts to a general audience

were explain what these course concepts are by using simple definitions of them. I started off my

explaining what the essay the essay wanted me to do. For example, in the essay 1 tab, I put that

essay one was a personal experiment that I had the opportunity to choose the topic of. Then I

would explain the course concept in the next sentence to make sure viewers of the website knew

what they were before most people would scroll down to look at the rest of the work. I also kept

the definitions short so as not to confuse the general public with what I was talking about. For

instance, in the essay 2 tab, I mentioned the annotated bibliography helped me find the different

opinions of experts on the topic while connect them to each other. This would allow the general

public who might not know what an annotated bibliography is, to be able to understand the

basics of it without having them read too much information.

In essence, I feel that is course has not fully prepared me to become a part of the

academic research community. This has nothing to do with the amazing instructor I had but with

more of feeling that I need to be more prepared before I am ready to delve into that can of

worms. For me to be ready to be a part of the academic research community, I believe that I
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would need to research more topics and write essays about them to improve my craft further

because I do not want my work to look bad compared to the others who are part of the

community. However, I had an amazing time in this class and being able to learn from my

instructor McCann and be able to hear her input into my essays to make them the best versions of

themselves. I hope in the future when I have to write essays they are as fun as the ones that I had

in both English 1301 and 1302. These English classes will be something I will remember for

many years to come whenever I am writing essays or even talking to people in a more

appropriate way.
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Works Cited

Maldonado, Jaden. Analyzing the Effects of Cold Showers on a Person TAMIU? 2024

Maldonado, Jaden. The Effects of Video Games on Teenager Mental Health TAMIU? 2024

Maldonado, Jaden. Positive Effects of Video Games on Teenager Mental Health TAMIU? 2024