Reflective Essay: The Change In My Writing Process

Reflecting back on all the aspects of this paper, I have to admit that for as much as I complained (to my husband, cats, anyone who would feel sorry and buy me coffee), I really enjoyed working on this research project. At the beginning of the semester, I expected most of the assignments to be the same as English 101, but with much harsher grading on the grammar and prose. What I didn't expect, but very much appreciated, is the amount of detail that was taught on how to write one paper. I am content with the final product, however, there are quite a few things I would still change in my writing process.

First and foremost, even though I'm content with how my paper turned out, I still have a nagging feeling that I could have spent another solid twelve weeks just tweaking the wording, adjusting paragraphs, and conducting additional research. I don't know if this issue stems from personal preference, or if I should have "wallowed in the complexity" a bit longer before writing my outline and rough draft. In fact, even if the need to continuously adjust paragraphs is a

In my mind, I took this as "find five to seven sources then try and force them to fit into my barely realized thesis". This method wasted a lot of time that would have been better spent just researching fifteen to twenty articles, then paring down to the amount needed for the paper. I did switch to this method at the time that I wrote my outline, but still ended up mashing the brainstorming, research, and rough drafting writing all into one process to make the deadline. Furthermore, after I completed the rough draft there were parts of the paper that felt incomplete because I did not fully understand the problem myself, and ended up changing large chunks of the paper for the final draft after working out the