I have met some of the learning objectives of the course, but I still have some things left for improvement. I have improved my reading, writing, and editing skills by going over my work and reading it out loud, leaving it alone for a day coming back with fresh eyes, and typing it out instead of voice typing so I make sure that I stay on point. I have also done this by listening to the suggestions and ideas of my peers and asking questions on how to get better at concepts that I find difficult. Another skill that I’ve learned this semester that I find very useful for my writing is using the library’s database to find sources.

One skill that I worked on in this course that I hadn’t worked on willingly before was the idea of peer review. Before this course, I would proofread my work on my own once or twice and then submit it after editing the grammar. However, throughout the semester, I was given opportunities to show my work to other people, get different perspectives and improve on things that I would have never noticed on my own. Because of that, I now want to hear the opinions of others and be able to improve my work based on their suggestions since it’s important to keep the audience’s ideas in mind when you write because they are the consumers of your work. These peer reviews made me think of my work as not just assignments to get done for a grade but something that someone will have to read and try to get information from.

For the Critical Analysis assignment, I tried my best and submitted work I was very proud of at the time until I saw the feedback for it and the grade I got for it. I then reviewed and made notes based on the feedback that I had received. During the one-on-one conferences for the research paper, I asked the professor about the things I was confused about the mistakes that I did not understand how to change having to do with my Critical Analysis assignment to make sure to avoid those mistakes when writing my research paper. During that conversation, I wrote down the advice given to me by Professor Jacobson and later made a bulleted list of things I wanted to improve on and implement into my writing technique when beginning to write my research paper. 

When completing the Critical Analysis, I only read over the paper once or twice outside of the peer review, but when I was doing my research paper, I made sure to constantly check over it and try to read it out loud to make sure the sentences would flow together and make sense. I was used to using voice typing to write my papers because I have a problem where I cannot express my thoughts the way they come into my head when typing. The thoughts come out incoherent and I feel the need to edit the structure of it on the spot when I type. Because of this, I preferred using the voice typing tool to just get the words on paper first and then do a lot of editing later to make it understandable. I was advised not to do this, so instead I just tried my best to write all the research paper by typing instead of using voice typing to get my words down. I found that this helped me stay on topic because I tend to ramble when I speak, so when forcibly typing it by hand, it wasn’t a problem. However, this means it took much longer to write compared to the critical analysis.
 
As I began to write my research paper I used my annotated bibliography as an outline for what I wanted to achieve in my research paper As I wrote my research paper I would constantly look back to it as a guide to make sure I wouldn’t steer off-topic. Normally when I write papers I prefer to save the annotated bibliography for last but since I had to turn it in first I was able to look back to it as a graphic organizer and pull pieces of it to add to my paper to make my delivery better. For example, in my annotated bibliography I wrote down the objectives of the paper and the songs I wanted to mention so when I was writing the research paper later on I knew which paragraphs to dedicate to what and which songs would support what point the most.

I also had a hard time reading long text which was necessary for me to complete my research paper. The reason I didn’t have to struggle as much for the Critical Analysis is because we had already read the text in class and I was very interested in listening to Little Richard’s story, which was the text that I picked for that assignment. However, for the research paper, I had to find at least five different texts on my own and go through them to find the perfect piece of evidence that would support my argument. It wasn’t a hassle finding the books by using OneSearch, one of the library databases. By learning how to use it in class, I was able to find sources that are exactly what I need for my English assignment but also for any type of topic that I need books on for a class. After picking my texts I tried to work around having to read everything by using the text search options that came with a lot of the books. I also made sure not to select random pieces of evidence just because they had the buzzword that I was looking for or because the length could help with word count. I would go back and read the whole page to make sure that it was actually on topic and would work on the argument I was trying to make.

My topic for my research paper was protest songs. At first, my thesis wasn’t very clear because from past courses I was taught to state my thesis by saying: “In this essay, I will…” And for the research paper, I was told to refrain from using phrases like that. Because of the adjustment that I had to get used to, my thesis wasn’t as clear as it could have been in my first draft, since my thesis included many topics. I was trying to summarize all the points that I would make in my research paper in a one-sentence thesis which just wasn’t working out well at the time as pointed out by one of my classmates during the peer review.

Something I tried to avoid in my research paper that I would typically do when writing is rephrasing what a piece of evidence said instead of explaining it and connecting it to my thesis. This was a problem I struggled with at first with my research paper but I got over it by keeping it in mind when reading over my work.

With the course goals that I met for the class, I was able to write a detailed research paper on a topic I became knowledgeable about.

Submitted 20 December 2024