TO:             Professor Crystal Rodwell

FROM:       Franco Buestan

DATE:        03/17/2022

SUBJECT: Reflection on “Analysis of Three Insomnia Related Lab Reports”

When writing my lab report analysis paper I struggled with source use practices and improved on organizing my work. 

The fact that I did not annotate the text prior to writing the final piece made it difficult to find quotes to support my analysis of the text. To make sure that I don’t struggle with finding evidence, annotating the text thoroughly will help to understand the text and find solid evidence. No annotations made it tough to analyze the lab reports for quality of format and quality. Without annotation I was not able to have a clear idea of what exactly each report lacked.Which in turn led to a confusing analysis. 

I also had trouble using formal language to analyze the quotes I used. I kept using vague informal language such as “did a good job” and “straight to the point”. To fix this there was a need to watch the videos on blackboard on formal writing. It led to changing “did a great job” to “clearly explained the purpose…”. Changing these helped the flow of the writing by being more informal and specific of what I was referring to.

One takeaway from writing this lab report analysis is the improvement of organization. Before starting to write the draft, writing an outline was helpful. Writing an outline shaped how exactly I was going to analyze my reports. When writing the outline I chose to introduce my topic first then my thesis statement along with a summary of the reports. After that I decided the overall structure was going to be separate paragraphs of each lab report containing positives and negatives. 

Through writing this lab report analysis I learned how to use an outline efficiently. This enhanced my drafting process by making sure my draft/final piece was organized. I also learned how to use formal language to analyze my quotes. This strengthened my analyzing and integration of sources by making the writing analytical rather than vague.

In the future whenever I have to do research, annotating the text(s) will be helpful in understanding the text and finding useful evidence. Writing more formally will improve the quality of my analysis. Also the use of an outline will always be helpful in organizing ideas and creating a well developed piece of writing.  As an engineer these strategies can be useful when writing technically by being able to be specific and descriptive.