Aiyanna Nicholson

Professor Matias

ENGL 21003

6 April 2022

Literature Review Reflection

When I first heard about this assignment I was very nervous because I had never heard of a literature review and all of the instructions and requirements for it seemed very extensive and not as clear as the other essays that I have written. The length of the essay wasn’t the thing that scared me because I had written essays that were this long before, the contents of the essay was the thing that worried me. To elaborate, most of the negative thoughts that I had pertained to my ability of being able to compare and contrast different aspects of each article and just being able to make the right connections with my own interpretations throughout the entirety of the essay. The only positive feeling that I had about the review is that I felt that I had picked a good topic and was confident that I could write a strong essay around that topic. Surprisingly enough I didn’t procrastinate at all with this essay and actually completed my body paragraphs before the first draft was due. My goal was to get my body paragraphs done early so I could have enough time to go through and thoroughly edit and read over each section. This method that I used was very effective because once I had the basis of those paragraphs down, everything else was easier to complete.

Going back to the obstacles I encountered, once I got into the habit of writing, everything else was smoother than I thought it was going to be but I did struggle a bit when I had to add my own ideas into each section. I was able to overcome this obstacle when I referred back to my research question and thought about how the different evidence and data from each article would answer, connect or build onto my topic. Moving onto my strengths, even though this essay was uncharted territory for me, I think that I had more strengths when writing this essay then with any of the others I have written. In listing some, I didn’t procrastinate at all and I had an easy time finding my sources and even had more than 6 that I could have used in my essay. Additionally, I think that I did a good job dividing each of my paragraphs into different subtopics. Compared to the workshops that were conducted during class,  I actually thought that the different worksheets on the blackboard were more helpful. More specifically, I found myself constantly going back to the worksheet with the academic verbs on it to help me when I was reviewing the different sources.

During the revision process I learned that sometimes my sentences are longer than they need to be and that I could do a better job at making them more concise. Something that I was concerned about was how well I was analyzing certain details between each article and at the end of one of my body paragraphs I didn’t offer up my own interpretation, so I was able to go in and add on some new information while fixing other small grammar issues. Surprisingly enough, this is one of the few times where I think my essay was written fairly strongly since I had everything organized properly and felt that I fulfilled the different requirements for the prompt. I also agree with all of the feedback that was marked on my paper and other than that wouldn’t change anything else. One thing that I learned from this assignment is that in the future, it is best for me to do the hardest part of a paper first so I can work my way up from there. With this knowledge, I will probably alter my writing process so I can have a smoother time with any other writing projects. Lastly, I wouldn’t say that I discovered anything particularly interesting while working on this review although, I was slightly taken aback by how much influence second hand smoke has on your mental health especially since I did not think that those two things could correlate with each other.

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