Caio de Brito 1

Caio de Brito
Prof. Presnell
UWRT 1104
12/9/15
Inquiry Reflection
This essay is much different than all the other research papers Ive done throughout my
life. For the most part, writing this essay was a lot more fun and a lot easier than other papers
Ive written except for a couple of things. The fact that we are able to use first person pronouns
in inquiry research made it so much easier to express our own opinions. Honestly, the only thing
that I wish I wouldve done is made flash cards with information on it. Ive done this with every
single research paper Ive written and it can sometimes be a pain to do but it definitely helps a lot
with organizing your paper.
One of my favorite things about inquiry is the fact that you are not only allowed, but
highly recommended to use first person pronouns such as I and we. This allows for personal
inputs throughout the paper to talk about what you learned in a certain paragraph, what you
thought was interesting, etc. This not only makes it easier for the writer to write something, but
also makes it more exciting for the reader. A lot of times research papers can be very boring to
read for the simple fact that its just research and statistics and unless you are completely in love
with the topic, chances are you are probably not going to like it.
There are many similarities between this research and other research Ive done in the
past. It can be comparable with the other one for the fact that it still had to be somewhat formal,

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it still needed in-text citations (to an extent) and a works cited page, it still required a conclusion
paragraph as well as the necessity for picking credible sources AND a certain number of sources.
Some key differences include the ability to pick whatever topic you want to write about, whether
it be a broad topic or not, the ability to include pictures in the essay, and being able to use first
person. This paper was much different in the sense that I had to do research to find out and
narrow down my topic. In English classes, you are usually assigned a topic and its usually
already narrowed down, so all you have to do is simply research what the teacher gives you.
With inquiry research, on the other hand, you have to narrow it down yourself, meaning that if
you dont already know a little bit about the topic, you will need to do research to find out the
basics in order to be able to narrow it down. What really helped me out with this was the mind
map we had to do to guide us through our research. That allowed me to visualize what I should
and what I shouldnt include in my paper.
I made sure I didnt use any bullshit on my paper since that was one of the first things we
learned in this class. In order to do this I avoided using any information that I wasnt sure about
on my essay. I only incorporated things that I knew for sure (or opinions) and research from
credible sources.
There are many things that I can take away from this project to help me out later in future
courses. First is, of course, the inquiry itself. If I ever get a choice on whether to do a regular
research paper or an inquiry research, I will surely pick inquiry every time. The only thing I
would do differently is of course make flash cards along with the mind map to help me guide me
through the research and to stay organized. I also learned how to incorporate my own thoughts
and opinions into my paper. Since you arent allowed to use first person on research papers, I
never learned how to express myself in the middle of a paper, so that is definitely something I

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learned during this. Lastly, I learned that there are many types of sources to use besides the more
common ones such as book, website, article, etc. You can also you someone else as a source, like
a friend or a relative, to get their input on it and if they know any information that could possibly
be beneficial to the research. One way to do this is through an interview, and although I didnt
use this as one of my sources, I will definitely take that into consideration the next time I have to
do this.
This inquiry project connects to my life because rock has always been a part of my life
and I play the guitar, which makes me more interested in the history of it. Things like the
Woodstock Festival, sub-genres, Michael Jackson, and much more were all things that I learned
during this project. I am much more knowledgeable on the subject of rock than I was before.
This can actually help me out in the future in a few different ways. I think this can definitely help
me in playing the guitar to an extent. Learning about the different sub-genres can help me learn
the different rhythms for each one in order for me to be able to play them. Theres a famous
saying that history repeats itself. If thats the case then learning about the past can help me
understand rock in the future.
My writing has changed tremendously since the beginning of the semester. I came into
college with a decent reading/writing level for a high schooler. However, as a freshman in
college, the readings get much more difficult as well as the writing. Readings like Ballenger
and Theories of Intelligence were much more advanced readings which took me more time to
understand than some other readings from the past. At times, I would find myself completely lost
in the text not knowing what was happening, only to have read that whole paragraph once again.
In the beginning of the semester my writing was effective in the sense of what I was taught
during all those years of middle school and high school English courses. My grammar and

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punctuation was good, my spelling was good, my use of quotation marks, parenthesis and
dashes, and writing a works cited/bibliography page. However, my writing was still not up to par.
I was missing one key thing; detail. Throughout this course, I realized that detail is one of the
most important things in writing. It allows writers to express themselves better and for the reader
to picture and visualize every single sentence, something known as imagery. This was something
I would always see in poems during high school but never incorporated it into my own writing.
As I received feedback from my teacher and group mates, I began using more detail in my
paragraphs to make it more interesting. Another thing that I have improved on is paragraph
structure. My paragraph organization and structure was never bad but sometimes I would mix
things around and make ridiculously long paragraphs.
Critiquing was a big part of this course and I understand why. I like the fact that we were
put into discussion groups in which we had to read each others work and comment on the good
things about it and the things that need improvement. This allowed for all of us to see each
others opinions and improve our essays based upon these ideas. This was something I had done
before in a few classes (once on Google docs) and I find it very helpful and necessary.
Overall, I believe this was a great course to finish off my school writing with. I usually
dont like English/writing classes but this one was different, we did a lot of work but a lot of it
was fun and engaging. Im not too big of a writer in my personal time but I wouldnt be surprised
if I started writing a story or two when Im bored and dont have anything to do.