11: The Journey of my Research Paper

The research paper was nothing like any of the other research papers I've written.  First, the topic of this paper was based off of something that happened or affected my family in the past rather than some random topic that was assigned.  This allowed me to research something that really held a significance to my life.  Because of this interest, I certainly worked harder on this paper and found joy in doing so.  I learned what my parents experienced and perhaps more about how it influenced them to be the wonderful people they are today.  I researched Study Abroad and the outcomes of participating.  Since so many students are going on study abroad these days, I've wondered why and if they really are beneficial.  Since my parents also experienced a study abroad.  I wanted to find out how it might have changed their lives.

One thing that went really well for me in my research was my annotated bibliography.  Although it took me a long time to go through all the articles I found, I was able to write up summaries of each one and I used them to review what quotes I wanted to include in my paper.  That saved me a lot of time in the long run.  For my first draft, I also did a rough outline of the quotes I wanted to include and the ideas I wanted to write about.  This helped me focus my paper to the few points I wanted to make.

One thing I discovered while writing is that even though my final topic and thesis sounded really straightforward and narrow, I realized I could go so many directions within my topic.  I found so much information about my topic it was really hard to know what to focus on in my paper.  One thing I did with this was talk to people and to myself.  I asked myself what I would like to find out if I was reading my paper as if I didn't write it.  This helped me focus my ideas on what was most important and what maybe would be the most interesting for people to read.

The journey of my research paper served two purposes: it allowed me to understand more about how I came to grow up in the United States and how a study abroad would benefit me in my life.