Reflection

Nora Hixson

English 121

Professor Jenn Zukowski

Reflection

At the beginning of the semester, my goals included being able to narrow down my topic, as well as being able to get my point across clearly and effectively. I also hoped to become better with citations and finding reliable sources, and how to use them to my advantage. Another goal for me was to work on my time management and how to not get super overwhelmed. I believe I have improved on being able to narrow down my topic, but I think I still need to work on the clarity of my writing. I still don’t have a very clear writing style and sometimes it’s hard to follow. I also need to continue to work on my time management because I found it was easy for me to fall behind in the process of writing each essay.

While researching my topic, I learned that the number of children with body image issues between the ages of eight and ten was much bigger than I had originally thought. I also learned about the EBSCO database, and what a useful resource it can be when looking for reliable sources. From random articles and websites that I had found through Google Search, I discovered that it’s very hard to find unbiased writing about body image and the media.

I think the best part of my paper is the topic that I chose, because it is something that I am passionate about. Unfortunately, I don’t think my writing did justice to the topic and how much more in depth I could’ve gone, which I am disappointed about. I don’t think I spent enough time working on it and I didn’t ask for revisions from other people who could’ve helped me.

I think my instructor will hopefully like the number of sources I used to support my writing and how I used them. I unfortunately don’t think my writing was clear or concise enough for it to be easily read and understood.

I feel like I have definitely gotten better at researching on the web and being able to find reliable sources online. This made the research process easy because I knew what I was doing, but also difficult because it would become super easy for me to get distracted while I was researching online. I also don’t think I spent enough time researching in general and I don’t think I spent enough time thoroughly reading my sources. I think when I revise my essay before turning it in for the portfolio that I will be sure to match up my in-text citations with my works cited, as well as double checking that I am properly quoting the information that I read.

In the research process I discovered that EBSCO was easier to use to find reliable sources as 
opposed to just searching in Google. I also discovered that the more specific I was in the wording I used to search, the easier it was for me to find results that applied to my topic.