As we are coming to an end of the semester it is important to know the next steps of your life design. I’ve always known that I wanted to do something in the medical field but from writing the research critical analysis essay I was able to find the benefits and tradeoffs for the careers that I had in mind which led to me committing to a pediatric physician assistant as my ideal career. The purpose of the research critical analysis paper is to give an overview of how I developed my decisions on a major and career life design by incorporating the methods that we learned throughout the semester.

Before starting the research critical analysis essay, I reviewed the instructions that were required a couple of times. If there was any information or section that I didn’t understand I asked my professor. I also created an outline for each section of the essay so that I can incorporate each idea which made the process of writing the essay easier and more convenient. While writing the section for “Your Design Thinking Process” I noticed that I had trouble incorporating the informed design rubric into my essay. For this section, we had to self-evaluate ourselves with evidence on whether we are a beginner or informed designer. I had difficulty explaining why I gave the pattern the rating I did which made it more confusing when you read it. Another issue that I had while writing the research critical analysis is that the requirements are like the exploratory essay, so it was hard not to be repetitive. During my revision process, I can explain what the Pattern is and incorporate examples for each pattern making it less confusing.  

Out of the six rhetorical situations genre, stance, and media/design were the three situations that impacted my essay. The style of this paper was a personal research narrative where I am writing about my experience in designing my ideal career so that I can be successful. Since I am designing my future career it is important to express my views on what influenced me to commit to becoming a physician assistant. Using different search engines to conduct research such as O-NET and Gapmedics (internship program) was a big impact on my essay. The medical field has a diverse amount of occupations but with research using O-NET, I was able to narrow down my options. Furthermore, O-NET also led me to explore different internships that can expand my knowledge of the medical field.    

Some course learning outcomes that were met through this assignment are “Developing strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing”, “Recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations” and “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias”. Making an outline before writing made the drafting process easier because it helped me organize my thoughts. From the peer review, I was able to have insight on some ideas that could be included to strengthen my essay during the revision process. By recognizing the rhetorical situations, it allowed me to practice and understand how to utilize them which made my essay more effective for my readers. Lastly, we needed to create a reference page for the search engines to avoid plagiarism.

While writing the research critical analysis essay I noticed that the exploratory essay had a similar concept and requirement to the research critical analysis. Since the essays were so similar it was challenging to write without being repetitive. However, encountering this essay helped me learn that both essays go hand in hand to expand our ideas for our life design process. I also learned how I have exploited the course learning outcomes throughout the essay by developing different strategies, using rhetorical situations and referencing different search engines. Developing different strategies such as making an outline was beneficial while writing the research critical analysis because all my thoughts were organized and integrated into my essay.