Reflective Cover Letter
I started my research paper very poorly, procrastinating for the first draft timeline for almost a week, giving me about an hour before class that day to write it. I really enjoyed the activity where we had to write multiple introductory paragraphs, eventually using the second one throughout the entirety of the research paper. My first draft had very little to no information or research that was required because I did not know how to do in-text citations and there was not enough time to worry about that. I messed up on that day the first draft was due as well, bringing only one essay to class when we were performing another group review during class. I struggled to get much feedback because of this but I did read my one essay out loud, which I received comments that I had a good introduction, but could use more information (obviously) and perhaps some background on the issue before I jump right into Catalan independence.
Once we had turned in our first draft, I struggled on how I should continue revising and editing my essay because I liked what I had but it had no specific research information. Therefore, I was stuck between trying to work in all the research I had collected versus completely re-doing my first draft so that I could have something to work with. I spent most of the following week debating between the two options, and eventually decided to work in information so that I didn't have to start from scratch. For the second draft deadline, I had my intro and about a page of actual essay with facts and quotes, with the rest still unfinished. The other in-class exercise that helped me immensely was that next class, where we cut up all our paragraphs and re-arranged them to see if we could see our essay in a different organization and structure. Even though most of my paragraphs were unfinished, I found that I liked a certain order that I hadn't tried before.
I brought this idea and my still incomplete second draft into a teacher conference with my English professor last week. I explained that I had decided on my structure for my essay thanks to last class, and that the last paragraphs were still works in progress. She suggested that after I had introduced the topic and gave some background, that I needed to spend a few paragraphs tying the idea of Catalan independence back into soccer, and how those are related. I agreed, telling her that I had the same idea but I had not figured out what information I wanted to use regarding soccer, and what way I wanted to take that approach. That following Thursday, I sat down with my roommate, who was working on some business homework, turned some music on, and wrote the final 2/3's or so of my essay which took about six hours, all in one sitting.
This "final" or third draft that I wrote was what I gave to my teacher on Friday, when we were going to do a peer review letter of someone else's research essay over the coming weekend. The review I got was amazing, with a...
