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Brittney Berkley English 1102 April 24, 2012 Final Reflection Letter Dear Malcolm, my portfolio is the perfect

example of how my writing and research skills have grown so far during this semester. When I look back at my first drafts I realize all of the mistakes that I hadnt noticed in the past. It shows that my writing has improved. Starting this semester, I was a little rusty on writing research papers. I had not written one since high school and my last English class did not focus on research. The English course I had taken last semester was based on writing more opinionated work. We strayed completely away from research and structured papers. I think thats why my writing may have lacked more in the beginning. When I first started brainstorming in my interest inventory I really did not take it seriously. I thought it would be just an assignment to turn in and that I would never actually go back to it. Sort of like a one and done type assignment. But, I surprisingly looked back at it for a majority of my other papers. I did this to remind myself what it was that I was researching. To keep the drive that was necessary to research more, Id always think back to it. I figured this could be considered personal growth for the fact that I wanted to stay on track. Caring about writing was never something Id ever thought I would do. Although I still hated it, the research process made me actually care about my topic.

Once I began the different essays and drafts I realized it was not going to be as easy as I had imagined. My grammar, citations, and length of the paper were struggling and did not make a noticeable improvement until the end of the semester. I had not written this way in over a year. My high school teachers obviously did not care about teaching us the correct way to write citations either because almost everything I had done was wrong. I was just taught to use sources like citation machine in the past. I now know that those do not always cut it. You finally got through to me Malcolm...only took a few months! My topic proposal was when I was completely interested in answering all of questions. Basically, you could have called me Curious George. I was so eager and blind as to how much work I was going to have to put into these research papers as a whole. If I could compare this essay to anything it would be like the honeymoon phase. I was use to writing essays that were not really worth any second thought. The annotated bibliography was probably the most boring and helpful step in the research process. The only reason that it was somewhat hard to write this is because it was basically a citation assignment with summaries that were somewhat redundant. Everyone knows that citations are not my strong point. The sources I used in the annotated bibliography pretty much played a crucial role in my EIP. It was easy to go back and use information from my summary or go back to the original source. Honestly, there was multiple times where I got tired of writing basically the same paper or paper on the same topic over and over. But, if I had not written multiple drafts my work would have stayed the same and my thought process towards writing would have never changed. The EIP was my biggest struggle in the class. Just cranking out a seven page paper is tough.

Even though I had researched the entire year it took me FOREVER to write a decent paper. I kept going back to my past writing and pushing forwards. I had been working on this topic so long that I just wanted to bring a good EIP to the table. Why give up on something that you secretly have grown to care about? As frustrating as it was, it definitely made me work. I had finally fixed my citations, reached a paper that I was happy with, and completed so many drafts that have shown my personal growth as a writer. I am happy that I got through it and that I never have to take English again. Even though I do not have to take any more English courses, this class will help me in my major and future in my career. The medical field is full of research by many people and constantly learning and finding new information. I will always have to research new medications or treatments and keep nursing notes. Just because I wont really be doing much with English in my life, I will need basic researching skills like the ones I have learned in this class. Congrats Malcolm for showing a hard headed person that things that you dont always want to do may help you in the long run.

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