Running  Head:  Reflective  Essay      

Shanna  Pollack  

Professor  Pigg  

English  1102  

21  November  2013  

 

Reflection  of  My  Research  Paper:  The  Benefits  of  the  Gym  and  How  

Much  People  Know:  College  Student  at  the  University  of  Central  

Florida  

 

Throughout  this  course,  I  have  learned  how  to  write  a  research  paper.  Most  

of  the  research  that  I  presented  in  my  essay  was  a  step-­‐by-­‐step  process.  The  steps  

came  together,  creating  a  research  paper  what  would  discover  how  much  UCF  

students  know  about  the  benefits  of  going  to  the  gym.  The  following  information  

explains  my  personal  opinion  about  my  strengths,  weaknesses,  what  I’ve  learned,  

and  what  I  plan  to  take  away  from  this  writing  experience.  

The  course  goals  that  I  believe  I  did  the  best  job  learning  were  developing  a  

clear  topic,  evaluating  texts,  and  reading/summarizing  arguments  from  different  

texts.  When  choosing  a  topic  to  write  my  paper  about,  I  chose  something  that  was  of  

interest  to  me  and  which  would  relate  to  any  audience.  Writing  about  the  benefits  of  

going  to  the  gym  and  working  was  a  successful  topic  because  it  pertains  to  my  

future  physical  therapy  profession,  provided  a  very  practical  exigence,  and  is  a  topic  

that  applies  to  the  population.    

  Running  Head:  Reflective  Essay      

I  believe  I  did  a  good  job  in  evaluating  my  primary  research  interviews.  I  

evaluated  the  interviews  by  combining  the  interview  question  responses  together,  

in  order  to  easily  compare  all  of  the  question  responses.  I  than  took  the  main  ideas  

of  what  the  interviewees  said  and  generally  wrote  what  they  said  in  simpler  terms  

and  I  sometimes  wrote  an  idea  that  I  had,  which  came  from  the  responses.  The  

following  picture  is  a  representation  of  my  notes  after  evaluating  the  interviews.  

 

In  the  image  above,  I  underlined  words  that  were  main  ideas,  or/and  that  

related  to  stress  management.  I  did  this  so  that  I  could  easily  look  back  and  find  

points  that  I  wanted  to  address  in  my  actual  research  paper.    

Before  any  of  the  interviews  took  place,  I  had  to  do  secondary  research,  

which  I  then  based  my  interview  questions  off  of.  After  reading  and  finding  

secondary  sources  that  I  believed  would  work  best  with  my  paper,  I  summarized  the  

important  information  from  the  texts,  which  I  used  in  my  blogs  and  than  later  in  my  

  Running  Head:  Reflective  Essay      

research  paper.  The  following  example  shows  a  portion  of  one  of  my  secondary  

resources  and  how  I  summarized  it  in  my  blog  post.    

“…there  is  evidence  of  a  relationship  between  fitness  training  and  

improvements  in  various  aspects  of  cognition  across  a  broad  range  of  

ages…However,  the  mechanisms  that  underlie  this  relationship  are  

unclear  and  might  differ  during  development  and  ageing,  as  the  brains  

of  children  are  still  developing  and  undergoing  organization  whereas  

the  brains  of  adults  are  not.  Physical  activity  during  childhood  might  

encourage  optimal  cortical  development,  promoting  lasting  changes  in  

brain  structure  and  function.  Future  research  should  address  whether  

the  mechanisms  that  support  the  physical  activity–cognition  

relationship  are  different  in  children  and  adults.  (Hillman  et  al,  2008)”  

My  summery  of  this  text  is:  

It  was  very  difficult  to  get  a  clear  result  from  tests  of  children  and  

young  adults  because  their  cognitive  functions  are  not  fully  developed  

until  young  adulthood.  As  a  result,  tests  could  not  tell  if  cognition  

improved  due  to  exercise,  or  due  to  normal  brain  development.  

Although  this  is  not  clear,  tests  have  only  shown  improved  cognition  

or  no  change,  meaning  that  exercise  doesn’t  have  any  negative  effects.  

  I  summarized  this  text  by  pulling  out  the  information  that  I  believed  would  

help  support  the  claims  I  planned  to  make  and  that  I  could  expand  upon  if  

necessary.  

  Running  Head:  Reflective  Essay      

  When  writing  this  paper  I  learned  that  within  a  research  paper,  the  order  of  

information  is  very  important.  I  used  the  IMRAD  format  in  to  get  thoughts  across  

clearly.  One  example  of  order  in  my  paragraphs  is:  

“Through  my  secondary  research,  working  out  improves  

concentration,  memory  output,  and  cognitive  performance.  It  is  

interesting  that  throughout  the  interview  process,  the  interviewees  

mentioned  factors  of  cognition/productivity,  but  did  not  mention  it  

specifically  as  a  benefit.  A  person  would  also  think  that  the  

educational  benefits  of  working  out  would  be  of  most  importance  to  

college  students.  Though,  my  primary  research  shows  that  college  

students  are  very  unaware  of  these  benefits.  Each  participant  I  

interviewed  responded  “I  don’t  know”  when  asked,  “Is  education  

affected  by  working  out  and  if  so,  how?”.  Therefore,  college  students  

should  be  more  educated  on  working  out  in  order  to  help  them  shape  

their  lives  in  the  present  and  for  the  future.  (pg.  7)”  

This  paragraph  gives  an  example  of  the  larger  arrangement  of  my  paper,  in  

IMRAD  format  because  it  shows  the  different  sections  within  a  research  paper  and  

how  they  fit  together  to  build  a  claim.  

Throughout  the  process  of  this  paper,  I  believe  I  did  the  worst  in  learning  and  

practicing  observations  and  synthesizing  information.  I  failed  to  thoroughly  observe  

behaviors  of  people  at  the  gym  and  I  never  observed  the  behaviors  of  the  people  

who  were  interviewed.  For  all  I  know,  they  could  all  go  to  the  gym  everyday  or  not  

at  all.    I  also  didn’t  do  a  good  job  synthesizing  the  information  from  the  secondary  

  Running  Head:  Reflective  Essay      

sources.  I  never  synthesized  2  or  more  of  my  secondary  resources,  creating  a  new  

idea.    

When  I  began  this  1102  English  class,  I  had  only  written  3  research  papers,  

but  none  of  those  compared  to  the  research  paper  that  was  assigned  to  this  

semester.  I  was  definitely  challenged  by  the  new  writing  style  and  high  writing  

quality  that  I  needed  to  display  throughout  my  paper.  Also,  none  of  my  previous  

research  papers  have  required  primary  research.  The  process  of  incorporating  

primary  research  into  my  paper  was  very  different,  but  it  both  extended  my  

learning’s  and  challenged  me  in  a  good  way.  Adding  the  primary  research  to  my  

paper  was  challenging  in  that  I  needed  to  integrate  it  with  my  secondary  research.  

This  meant  that  there  was  much  more  information  that  I  needed  to  work  with  and  

thus  find  a  way  to  fuse  it  all  together.  But,  primary  research  was  not  all  bad.  It  

expanded  my  learnings  about  the  topic  I  was  researching  and  allowed  me  to  directly  

receive  information.  

In  the  future,  I  plan  to  use  primary  research.  It  is  a  good  way  to  provide  

concrete  evidence  and  it  can  be  expressed  in  simple  terms  such  as  charts  or  graphs.  

I  will  also  take  away  the  lessons  that  I  learned  about  paragraph  placements  and  how  

to  flow  from  one  paragraph  to  another.    

Overall,  I  believe  I  successfully  wrote  a  research  paper.  This  does  not  mean  

that  my  paper  is  perfect,  but  I  have  learned  a  lot  about  how  to  properly  write  a  

research  paper  and  I  plan  to  use  what  I  have  learned  in  the  future.  

 

 

  Running  Head:  Reflective  Essay      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References  

 

Hillman,  Charles  H.,  Erickson,  Kirk  I.,  and  Kramer,  Arthur  F.  (2008,  January).  

Be  smart,  exercise  your  heart:  exercise  effects  on  brain  and  cognition.  Nature  

Reviews  Neuroscience.  Retrieved  from  

http://sfx.fcla.edu/ucf?sid=google&auinit=CH&aulast=Hillman&atitle=Be+smart,+e

xercise+your+heart:+exercise+effects+on+brain+and+cognition&id=doi:10.1038/nr

n2298&title=Nature+reviews.+Neuroscience&volume=9&issue=1&date=2008&spa

ge=58&issn=1471-­‐003X