Reflection

Final Reflection

            The reason I chose this topic is because I love science and I love medicine and cancer is such a big obstacle we are still facing. I am sure everyone at some point has been touched or affected by cancer in some shape or form. So in order to help people when I finally graduate I need to try to understand how cancers work and what makes them so deadly. When I finished the paper I was still very happy with my choice I was able to pick something that truly interested me and it made the project more enjoyable. The main goals of my project was to make an argument through research that melanoma, brain cancer, and pancreatic cancer have horrible prognoses and need improvements in those areas of research. I also wanted to find out the factors, which contribute to these poor prognoses. I feel that I met those goals when I had finished my paper. The facts that interested me the most about my paper was the fact that simple mutations can cause such damage to the human body. This project helped me gain a better understanding of the topic better than a traditional paper because I was able to use pictures, which show what these cancers look like. In addition to showing why they can be so deadly and destructive. I was able to collect a lot of useful information from the databases on the library website. I thought finding information for the paper would be difficult but it turned out to be quite easy. The main thing I learned from this research project is doing the extra work in the beginning by making an annotated bibliography saves you so much time in long run and makes writing the paper much easier. The hardest aspect of the paper was writing the section on pancreatic cancer. It was difficult because I lost my grandma to it recently and knew some of the hopeless circumstances and facts of the cancer all too well. The paper as a whole was very interesting. As well as seeing some of the new treatments that they are, trying to use to treat these cancers better was very enjoyable. When I organized my paper, I tried to put the facts at the beginning of the paragraphs so when I added my opinions they would be understood better. I also tried to incorporate pictures toward the end so all the information you just read leads up to this reveal of what this deadly cancer looks like. The peer review was encouraging. I was able to get and give helpful advice to make my paper better. Sometimes it can be more helpful to hear criticism from your classmates. The peer review was most helpful in the respect that it allowed me to make improvements before I actually turned in the hard copy of my work, which I appreciated. By working with my classmates during the peer review’s I learned ways that I could improve my writing as well as the organization of text with photos.