Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY

Reflective Essay
Ivan Jesus Gonzalez
Nevada State College

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY

This being my second semester in college I feel like I have already adapted to the
environment and the work load that is involved. After taking English 100 last semester I feel like
it prepared me enough for English 102 and I definitely have used the information effectively.
Last semester I had mentioned that one of my goals was to improve on my citations and I did just
that. I learned more and more about APA formatting this semester, doing so helped me
incorporate it into every single paper without struggling. I also had mentioned that I really
wanted to improve my vocabulary but unfortunately I feel as if it remained the same. This
writing journey was much different than it was from last year and there are a few reasons why.
For English 100 it was just about writing papers and getting the idea of how to turn words into
great essays and of course having to learn about APA formatting. When taking English 102 it is
already expected that you are familiar with this concept, so now we must learn how to write in an
argumentative style. Before taking the course I was actually kind of scared because when writing
an argumentative paper you must provide good reasons to go with your thoughts. Although
instead of having to write multiple papers back to back all we had to write was 3 and writing
these was a lot simpler this semester due to having experience to write long papers.
As soon as the class starts we get assigned our first paper and I didnt know what to
expect. So the first assignment was to write about the status of student writing here at Nevada
State College in a professional letter format. This was really difficult for me because I had no
idea how I was going to write a paper in a letter format so it was really confusing as well. The
only way I could think of pulling this off was to look at other letters in general and going off of
those ones, another thing I tried to do was to incorporate all of the guidelines into the paper and
make them three separate parts of one paper. Actually I was barely able to complete the rough
draft in time and tried to do my best. The first part of the paper consisted of my challenges as a

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY

writer and also my formatting throughout multiple papers that I had recently done in other
classes. Following the first part of the paper I began to explain what I had found out about my
classmates papers and their formatting as well. For a portion of the paper I had to explain what I
had learned from my interview with my biology professor, I also paid attention to the things they
specifically said about students formatting, grammar, and spelling. After receiving the feedback
this allowed me to improve on my paper and the content in each paragraph, this allowed for more
information to flow from my mind and lastly into the paper. Since I was arguing that more
students here at this college need to be more advanced in their way of writing I had to provide
reasons for this and proper evidence showing the students writing. I explained that there should
be a workshop put in place to inform students about APA formatting and its uses. Surprisingly I
did very well on this paper and it was my highest graded paper in the class.
The second paper consisted information based on other peoples evidence as well as how
important writing is for a nursing major. The objective was to develop a research question as well
as a proposal so I decided to choose something that was valuable to me. While there were people
who chose topics on how creative writing can have an effect on your education, mine was how
do healthcare professionals writing skills impact patient care. The reason behind this was to
examine how something that appears to be such a small detail can make situations very lethal.
Unlike what was required in the professional letter this paper required me to do my own research
on topics. Luckily for me I had my old portfolio from the past semester and this allowed me to
review on APA formatting when citing information such as evidence. I was fortunate enough to
receive some good feedback on ways that I could improve this paper especially on the methods
section. It contained an introduction on the topic, a literature review, and a methods section that
stated how the information will be found. For the methods section I stated how I was going to

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY

examine how healthcare professionals writing skill impact patient care and when the observation
would be initialized. In the paper I included details such as fifteen participants total including
cardiologists, anesthesiologists, nurse practitioners, and licensed practical nurses will take part in
this examination. In order to complete the third paper following this paper I had to present the
results of the observation in order to inform other researchers and even the hospital how theyre
employees writing skill can impact patient care. Due to past experience I was able to cite
correctly when writing this piece of information the documentation within medical records is
very important because it contains the patients history, clinical findingspatients progress and
medications (Thomas, 2009, p. 4). I was able to show what I have learned in this class and the
previous English class how well I can present information and the ways of inputting the proper
information into the correct places.
Finally it came down to the last paper which was completing the plan that we had started
while writing paper 2. Basically this paper was the final piece to the research problem because it
allowed us to explain the evidence that we found on our own instead of using someone elses. In
order for me to be able to expand on the research I had to incorporate as much information as
possible that I acquired through my research methods as well as incorporate a section filled with
my findings. At first I didnt think that I was actually going to have to do my own research but I
found it very helpful because this paper was built on all the information that I found. Since I had
to find out if a medical professionals writing skills can really impact patient care I took the
streets and thought of my first method of observation. This method required me to go to a local
hospital and do my own research there but I wasnt even allowed to go in. Instead I thought of
doing surveys which was the most optimal plan because it didnt involve me doing one or two
interviews that are likely to take up lots of time. I made my survey on a website called survey

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY

monkey and I included 10 simple questions that were relatively easy to answer. The questions
included were how long have you been in the medical field? What is your education level? Do
you witness medication errors with patients? and other questions similar to those. I conducted
this survey the weekend before it was due and received all my answers the following days which
helped a whole lot. This paper was very similar to the first paper and mainly all that had to be
added was the new methods section of course and a section that included your findings based on
your methods section. Every single answer that I received from the respondents was used in my
findings section. For example a majority of the people responded that the most common error
regarding communication was missed or late doses, wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong patient and
wrong time. This was the evidence that helped me state my argument on why things like this are
such a big deal as well as the other responses I received. I definitely used my argumentative
skills for this paper in order to convince other people that my research was acceptable and
conducted in a professional manner.
For this semester I tried to improve on every little detail considering that if I want to be
good at something you must do it correctly at first. Providing the evidence as well as correct
sources for your information is a major deal and if these details arent done correctly then they
can have a bad outcome on your grade. I was successfully able to include in text citations and
references as well, I provided about 10 references for the last paper. This writing journey was a
stressful one but I really learned and improved a lot from the previous semester and now I can
look back at this and be able to follow the correct guidelines for future references.