Sunday, May 3, 2009
Reflecting on writing your literature review
As we start class today, please reflect on your literature review. What did you learn from this writing assignment? What do you think you did well? What was the most challenging part of writing this essay? If you had one more day to work on it, what could you still improve on?
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I learn that this assignment was harder than it seems to be, because I had the whole paper ready on the day of the first draft, but I wrote the paper in different style than the assignment is asking for. I wrote the paper like the first assignment, but this assignment is asking for more qualitative. I think I did well on finding the sources. The most challenging part of writing this essay is that put the author’s passage into my own paper. I spent most of my time thinking about how I should put their thoughts into my essay. If I had one more day to work on it, I would go to the writing center for their helps with my paper.
ReplyDeleteIn my literature review I researched what motivates people to volunteer. Through my research I learned that the main reasons include helping others and for personal or religious fulfillment. In the paper, I believe that I created strong ideas and used my sources in order to back them up. However, although that was what I believe I did the best on, it was also the most difficult part of completing the project. If I had one more day to work on it, I would probably revise the introduction and conclusion in order to create stronger cases.
ReplyDeleteReflecting back to the writing process for the literature review I feel I learned a lot about the process of writing a review. It was really tough to take 5 different sources and find trends within them to connect together into my literature review. I think that I did a good job connecting the sources after putting each of the sources into an outline format. I also feel that in this paper I was being more concise in my writing than in the first and that was very challenging for me. Another challenging aspect of this literature review was the introduction and conclusion. I could not seem to find the words I wanted to use and in the conclusion the question at the end was not exactly how I wanted to end it. I was given one more day I would improve upon my ending statement and I would also continue working on my paper to the point. I found this paper one of the most difficult that I have written and I think it was that way because I have never written a paper like this before.
ReplyDeleteAfter finishing the literature review assignment, I realized that it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I have never done this type of assignment before, so I learned how to write a whole new type of paper. From writing this paper, I learned a lot more about homeless people and how they feel about getting help. Depending on the quality of the sources made it easier or harder to work with. With some of my sources focusing a little on a new aspect, it was harder to compare some parts. For this paper, I think I did well on comparing different sources and explaining the quotes. I focused on making sure the quotes could be related and explained how they could go together. For me the most challenging part of this paper was doing APA reference styling. I have never had to use it before this paper, and was a little confused. After reading the book about it, it made it easier, but I was still confused and not sure if I was doing it right. If I had another day to work on this paper, I would start by revising one more time and making sure my APA references were correct. I would also go through and make sure I chose the quotes from the different studies that best fit the paper.
ReplyDeleteThe literature review was something I found pretty challenging, at least of the nerves. Learning how to deal with the database search for articles was infinitely frustrating and time consuming. I think the biggest thing I learned from the assignment was how to really refine and narrow down my search. Obviously in the beginning the topic was broad, but by the end I was looking for specific ideas/articles that would give me more examples/proof to a point. I think I did a better job, this time, keeping my thesis narrow and really exploring that in depth instead of loosely touching on a mass of information surrounding the topic. I think I could have worked more on the development of the argument. I think if I had one more day I would have had someone, a peer, read the whole thing and tell me if they understood the argument, maybe leave out the conclusion and introduction and ask them what my thesis would be (similar to what we did in class). I think a final peer review would have been really beneficial and I will try to make time for it next time.
ReplyDeleteWhat I first learned from this assignment, is what a literature review is and how to write one. I had never read, let alone write a literature review before this assignment. With this assignment, I also learned how to better utilize the academic databases as well as how to use the APA format. In my review, I think did a good job in synthesizing my sources. The most challenging part of this assignment was getting used to the format and objective of the lit. review. I was having trouble in the beginning in trying to find a balance between presenting/evaluating the sources, while also trying to answer a research question. If I had more time, I would try and expound more upon the trends in the sources as well as make a better “conversation” between them.
ReplyDeleteI learned a lot and I had discovered some unknown stories behind the homeless veterans after the literature review. The voice of these homeless veterans were silently, saying without speaking, hearing without listening. The citizens joined the army were fighting for the governments, nations, politics, citizens, freedom, and democracy. But what happen after some soldiers get back from the battlefield, they could not survive in their own societies; they have no jobs, no places to stay, no stable work, no income, thus they become homeless. Heroes today, homeless tomorrow, what does that mean to them to join the army for? What does it mean when they off duty and ex-service? I wish if I could have one more day to work on that I will know more information about the homeless veterans.
ReplyDeleteI feel this type of writing involves a larger amount of reading and this particular assignment took me much longer than the first one on Rugged Dick. It was also very different from the first one, as the first one was focused on our own argument this literature review is more like a summary of the articles that we pulled out. We don't necessarily have to put forward a new thesis statement if we can find any within the articles that can be applied to all the five articles. But this doesn’t mean the second assignment was easier than the first one, and the searching process took a long time and required patience. Before starting writing, I spent at least 4 hours searching online, and it took another a few hours to examine the articles I downloaded to see if they could be used for my essay. To me, the hardest part was to break down the articles and integrate them into my essay. If I had one more day I’d like to read through all the articles I have to see if I omitted anything.
ReplyDeleteThe literature review was a very hard project for me. It was very challenging because I had a hard time finding sources that were good sources. Also it was hard to write about an article and make it sound like your own work. It was hard getting through all the information you didn't need and finding what was good useful information. I think I did well on explaining my quotes from the different sources and getting my ideas on paper. This writing assignment is different than past assignments because it is no longer my thoughts, it is someone else's that Im trying to make a connection with. That was hard for me.
ReplyDeleteThis assignment was quite challenging for me. I have never written a paper based on this many sources, and I found it very difficult to combine the sources into one fluid argument. While I did not have a terrible time finding a lot of sources, I did think it was hard to narrow down the sources into ones that would work together as a cohesive paper. I found it difficult to organize the paper and not simply repeat the studies that were conducted. I would continue to work on this area of the paper if I had more time.
ReplyDeleteThis assignment took the most out of me than any of the other assignments we had done this quarter (probably this year as well). Finding the right amount of information and the right kind of information can be a huge pain and writer's block; well, at least it was for me. For three of the four days I spent working on this I sat staring at my sources and a blank word document not having a clue of where to start. The sources posed a lot of information in front of me and finding the right sentence or passage proved difficult. Nonetheless, I feel doing research study or study based on hard facts is my strong point. Sure I can write a narrative or an opinion based paper, but unless that opinion based paper is not on something I strongly believe in, writing about hard facts and driving down a point is something I enjoy doing. If I had more time I'd probably work on corroborating my sources more and fixing my language a bit, but I'm happy at how it turned out.
ReplyDelete