Going into this class, I was a little hesitant, not because it was a writing class, but because it was a research course. I have done a couple of research papers between high school and freshman year but I have never taken a course entirely dedicated to it. I thought that it was going to be a lot of work and I was a little nervous because I never properly learned how to research. When we started Unit I, I was ready to jump in and give it a try. I thought that the topic of Food Politics was very interesting and unlike most classes, it would be something I would not mind writing and learning about. I enjoyed watching Food Inc. in class and reading the other sources that we used in our final articles. I thought it was cool to use different mediums as research. A major thing I learned from this was that you have to take who the author is into consideration. You have to determine whether they are a credible source and if they are biased in any way. I remember coming to class one day, after our homework was to read and annotate Blake Hurst’s article, Organic Illusions. I read the article, took notes, and came to class feeling confident on my take of his article. In class, when Amy asked for our opinions of the article, all of the people she had called on had said something that was the complete opposite of what I thought. They said that he was very sarcastic and that there was no evidence to support the claims he was making. Hearing all of these things, I sank in my seat and hoped to not get called on. That class made me realize that I just read the article and believed every word he said. I did not once question where he got his information from, who he was, and whether he was a credible source or not. This, to me, is a very important lesson you need to learn when you are doing research, and I am happy that it happened in the beginning of the semester.

Next, came taking pieces from each source and trying to connect them in a clear and cohesive manner. If you think that you can just do this on your first try you are wrong. This takes a couple of tries and it helps if you are very organized with your sources. The Sorting It Out Workshop was a helpful activity that allowed us to identify the project of each piece we read/watched and pick out pieces of information that connect with each other and support the claim we are trying to make. Doing multiple drafts and peer editing really made my final post so much better and made me feel more confident about it.

Multiple challenges arose for me in Unit II. Public speaking is definitely not something I like to do or think I am good at. Also the fact that we had to pick our own topic and start our research from scratch was a little intimidating. The good part about picking our own controversies was that we each got to pick something that we are interested in and eager to learn about. The topic that I chose was heroin and addiction. This topic was a little difficult because there are many problems that are fairly recent. This made finding information from databases a little bit difficult. The class where we learned about the different databases and which ones are useful for each topic is something that is super beneficial for future research and a great thing to know in general. Learning how to specify your topic and using different phrases and keywords really helped narrow the results and led to some really good findings for my Ted Talk and NYT article. Presenting my Ted Talk was probably the biggest challenge I faced in this course. I hate talking in front of people and presenting things, but I know that each time I do it makes it easier for the future. What also helped me give my talk was that I was really confident with the research I found and the claim I was making.

I truly learned a lot about heroin and addiction between Units II and III. Heroin is an up and coming issue for society today and some of the information I came across was frightening. The fact that there was a 286 percent increase in heroin-overdose related deaths from 2002-20013 was mind blowing to me. It was also very interesting to learn about the background behind heroin addiction and how it is so popular because people are initially addicted to prescription painkillers but then make the shift to heroin because it is a cheaper and very similar high. What I learned from these assignments made me want to continue learning about the topic and share what that knowledge with others. I am very proud of my NYT Article for Unit III and would choose to share that with people outside of class. Not only was this article a highlight of the semester, but also it made me realize how important it is to educate people on serious topics going on today. If enough people know about the dangers of heroin and addiction, it is possible for society to find a way to control and hopefully put a stop to it.

Each unit of this course presented some challenges I had to overcome, but in the end I think I was really happy and actually surprised with my final pieces. I learned a lot from this course about how and where to look for research and how to write for a specific genre and audience. I will take away many things from WRT 205 that will make my future assignments much easier.