Research Paper Reflection

Research Paper Reflection Essay

            A young girl was on her computer for hours upon hours. Rifling through hundreds upon hundreds of articles about underage drinking. All of the articles seemed to say the same thing: “Emily, this research paper is going to be horrifyingly dull to write and you are going to sound repetitive.” This was my life for six hours when trying to find research for my paper; little did I know that there actually is some fascinating information regarding my topic and psychology- my minor.  I have composed many research papers throughout my life including twenty page papers for my AP Literature senior project in high school. However, I have never been so overwhelmed writing a paper as I have with this one. I never realized how different the process of writing a research paper is in college- even on an AP (a supposed “college”) level.  Although the process was quite a struggle and required copious consumption of coffee and time, I actually feel that I learned some interesting factoids I did not know about underage drinking and also I was taught a valuable lesson about the different expectations that college professors have for research papers.

            I had just written a critical analysis essay on underage drinking and to be honest, I was too stubborn to change my topic for my research paper so I declared that as my focus. I wrote an impromptu thesis- without much knowledge of what I was going to be writing about- in class, in approximately a minute.  The thesis was vague, bland, and awkwardly written. I started off with frustration that I had no clue what I was going to focus on.

The world of underage drinking is widespread. After scouring the depths of the UNCA library website for articles about underage drinking, I found some seemingly interesting articles that I thought would provide an fresh take on the topic of underage drinking. I was going to uncover the secrets of preventive methods for underage drinking. After reading five articles that were at least ten pages long and furiously scribbling notes, I then could form an outline. By outline, I mean a bulleted list of facts from my research. It has been ingrained in my brain to organize ideas into topics and paragraphs. Upon doing this, I found some inconsistencies in facts. For example, I had an entire article on the benefit of parental involvement to prevent underage drinking and another article stating that community values are the biggest protective factor.  This did not seem to bode well for my resources. However, my infuriating and pointless (at the time) annotated bibliography was due in five hours so I simply wrote about the resources that I had.

Upon gathering my gargantuan stack of papers and notes, I composed the most rushed, vague, and bland paper I had ever written for my rough draft. I turned it into Moodle knowing that it needed a lot of work and a lot more time. I have learned that one cannot procrastinate with college research papers! Upon writing my final draft, I spread out my time working on the much-needed improvements and had a moment to actually comprehend how stimulating my topic was. I learned a lot of new information on the predictive factors for underage drinking which was actually horrifying personally considering alcoholism is extremely prevalent in my family, but it was interesting nonetheless. I read my paper out loud and realized that it was very analytical, but was still missing something- elevated diction. Elevated diction was always my go-to in high school, but in college I have learned that a good vocabulary will get you nowhere unless you have facts. I added in some of my verbal flair and was surprisingly reasonably happy with the result.

I never thought that I would actually be able to compose a clear, concise, and stimulating paper about underage drinking- an overdone topic. However when actually taking time and not cramming all of the work in at the last minute, I was able to create a fluid and informative piece of writing. Personally, I have never seen the merit in annotated bibliographies and still do not to an extent. However, I understand the value of good, consistent resources now. Overall, it was a stress-inducing, but rewarding experience and my research paper writing skills can only improve from here.