Donjuan 1

Domenic Donjuan

Dr. Sharity Nelson

ENGL 1302 223

14 April 2023

Reflection Essay 3

Something that I learned from Essay 1 that was applicable to Essay 3 was how to write

like if I was a part of the research. In the first essay, I constructed an experiment, as if I were a

real academic scholar. Similarly, in this third essay, I had to argue my case just like academic

scholars would. Throughout Essay 3, it was very important that I provide a lot of factual

information and supporting examples from peer-reviewed articles to give my audience the sense

that I have a lot of knowledge in the field/topic just like I did in Essay 1. Something that I

learned from Essay 2 that was applicable to Essay 3 was knowledge of the topic. Although I

decided on the topic of the connections between religion and the LGBTQ+ community just to

have something to write about, I soon found that it was really interesting. Having to complete an

annotated bibliography and compare quotes from all of the scholars somewhat forced me to

thoroughly read through each and every article that I had found from the database. Picking out

and reading various articles from scholars allowed me to dive deeper into the topics of religion,

the LGBTQ+ community, and coming out to families. Without doing any real reading, I would

have struggled a lot on this third essay, as I would have not had much knowledge on the subject.

Something that I learned in Essay 1 that was not applicable to Essay 3 was the

introduction, method, results, and discussion (IMRaD) format. In the first essay, the IMRaD

format was used in my writing because I had conducted an experiment. In this third essay, there

was no scientific investigation being done, so knowing how to write in the IMRaD format was
 Donjuan 2

useless. Obviously, I needed an introduction for Essay 3, but having methods, results, and

discussions sections were pointless for this argumentative essay. Something that I learned in

Essay 2 that was not applicable to Essay 3 was how to compare and contrast quotes from

different scholars. In Essay 2, I had to write on how scholars talked about religion and the

LGBTQ+ community both similarly and differently. This involved me having to quote and

paraphrase in almost every single sentence throughout my body paragraphs. However, in Essay

3, I did not have to do such a thing. Instead, I needed to use quotes from scholars to help support

my argument that disclosure of sexual orientation to a religious family could be harmful to the

individual if rejected. There was no need for me to compare anything, which as a result, made

writing the paper much easier compared to the second essay.

Something that I learned in Essay 3 that can be applied to other courses is how to

formulate the thesis statement. For this essay, my thesis statement in the introduction paragraph

followed the “point because reason” structure. Later, in the conclusion paragraph of the paper, I

restated the thesis using the “reason therefore point” structure. I believe these two ways of

formulating a thesis statement will be helpful when I write discussion posts for other courses,

such as Texas Government. It is very important that I have a strong thesis statement in my

discussion posts, especially because most of them require me to argue a certain topic. Just like I

did in this essay, I would most likely use the “point because reason” in my discussion post first

and then the “reason therefore point” towards the end. These two ways of writing a thesis

statement allow me to show which stance I am taking at the beginning of my writing and remind

the reader about it again at the end of my argument.

Something that I learned in Essay 3 that cannot be applied to other classes would be the

knowledge of the topic. My topic for this third essay involved religion, religious families, and
 Donjuan 3

coming out—things that I see not being so useful in other courses. As someone who is studying

marketing, I am going to be taking courses that involve a lot of business and math subjects. I will

not need to know these topics for a class like Accounting. Instead, I will need to know more

business and financial terms. The same concept takes place for a course like Biology. In Biology,

I need to know so many technical things about life such as cells and genetics. For somebody like

me, who is not that good at any science, Biology is tough. Again, I do not need to know why a

family will reject their queer child in a class like that. I do believe that having knowledge on the

topic is useful, but definitely not in the school environment, as it has absolutely nothing to do

with what I am studying.

The creation of an argument helps improve my writing, in general, because I now know

how to properly pick a stance and argue my point. It was very important that I had to read

various peer-reviewed articles because they allowed me to choose the stance that I wanted to

argue in my paper. Additionally, using quotes from scholars was great because they helped me in

backing up my points that I made throughout my essay. The creation of an argument will help

me approach writing tasks in the future with a more relaxed vibe. Prior to writing this essay, I

had thought that this was going to be the most challenging paper to write, and I just wanted to get

it over with. However, I did not have much of a hard time when it came to actually writing it. So

now that I successfully completed the paper, I know which steps to follow if I ever have to write

another argumentative essay again in the future.

From the comments I received from the readers of my essay, I would like to believe that

my one of my writing strengths is coming up with a research question. Upon asking my peer

what she thought of my research question, she responded saying that it was “a good strong

question” and “understand[able] and interesting” (Garza). Additionally, another writing strength
 Donjuan 4

was being able to make a call back to my thesis throughout the body paragraphs, as “each

paragraph goes with the concept of [my] research which helps [my] essay get [my] point across”

(Garza). On the other hand, I would like to believe that I do not have many writing weaknesses,

as my peer did not point any out while giving me feedback. However, she did note to “keep an

eye out for any repeating words” (Garza). The strengths from this third essay were basically the

same as the strengths from the first and second papers I wrote for this course. Similarly, there

were not many notable weaknesses I had in this essay that I did have in the previous ones. This

makes me feel better and gives me some more confidence when it comes to writing hefty essays.

From Dr. Nelson’s comments as a reader of my first and second essays, I think her

comments on my third essay will be to make my topic sentences clearer. Her feedback on my

first essay mentioned that “a reader should be able to read the first sentence of every paragraph

and understand what the […] section is telling them” (Nelson). I feel like Dr. Nelson will

definitely mention that to me about maybe one or two of my paragraphs, as I am not the best

when it comes to formulating topic sentences for my body paragraphs. Additionally, I think Dr.

Nelson will agree that I argued my position nicely in this third essay, which is “what

argumentative position papers are supposed to do” (Nelson). Any feedback that is given by my

professor on this third essay will be implemented into the final revision of it, so that I can get the

best grade possible. I also plan on visiting her office hours so she can give me the specifics of

what exactly needs to be changed.

The most challenging aspect of Essay 3 was writing the introduction and conclusion. In

my introduction, I feel like I struggled to provide background information on the topic, but I did

the best that I could. However, I did make my research question and thesis statement as clear as

possible, so that my audience knows that “it remains uncertain what exactly influences a
 Donjuan 5

religious family to be supportive or unsupportive of their LGBTQ+ identifying child” (Donjuan

1). On the other hand, the least challenging aspect of Essay 3 was producing the works cited

page. Throughout all my essays, I have found this part to be the easiest thing to do. Since I found

all of my peer-reviewed articles through the Academic Search Complete database, the MLA

citations were already there for me on the website. All I had to do was copy and paste the

reference into my works cited page and then I was done. The fact that the database already has

the citation available to simply copy and paste makes writing the works cited page extremely

easy.
 Donjuan 6

Works Cited

Donjuan, Domenic. “Coming Out to Faithful Families and the Consequences.” 10 April 2023.

ENGL 1302, Texas A&M International University, student paper.

Garza, Isabella. “Coming Out to Faithful Families and the Consequences.” Student Comment,

ENGL 1302, Texas A&M International University, 5 April 2023.

Nelson, Sharity. “The Effects Nighttime Phone Usage Has on Sleep.” Professor Comment,

ENGL 1302, Texas A&M International University, 17 February 2023.

Nelson, Sharity. “Religion, Faithful Surroundings, and the LGBTQ Community: How They Are

Connected.” Professor Comment, ENGL 1302, Texas A&M International University, 27

March 2023.