Zach Dougherty

Professor Blandford
UWRT 1103
22 November 2015
Reflection
This project was a very unique one. It made me question many things not only about
myself, but the world around me. It is a very interesting project because it involved me
researching an identity that differs from my own. This was at times hard to do because I, as a
human, often tend to stick to things that I am familiar with. This project made me branch out and
look at people that are different from me. I learned a lot from this project, and it brought up
several more questions. This was not a project where there was one question and it was going to
be answered by the end of the paper. This project brought many questions to the table, and many
of these questions do not have a definitive answer. This paper affected how I view myself and
others. It was a long process that had many steps, and these steps were very important to
obtaining a final product.
My idea started when we shared with the class our identities. I noticed that no one else
said where they were from in the United States. I said southern due to the fact that I think that
being from the south eastern part of the United States has affected the type of person I am today.
I started to think about this and the stereotypes I have heard about people from other regions of
the United States. This made me want to research into this topic and investigate whether or not
there is a correlation between region and personality. The question session was very informative
and helped me get a great start on the project. My classmates provided some great insight to

some of the questions that I already had, and most importantly they gave me new questions that I
could look into. This was a wonderful starting point for this project. The next step was the
proposal. This was a great way to get my questions down on paper. This was when I started to
realize that I had a very vast subject, and that I was going to have to slim down some of my
research. There was simply not enough time to research and write about all of it. This is when I
started to focus on two regions: the North and West. This led to my research, which started out
quite slow, but became easier after using different key words. My idea that there is a difference
in personality between people from different regions of the United States was reinforced by my
research. This led to the paper, which was easier to write because of the proposal and very
helpful sources. The idea did not change much, but was narrowed quite a bit to focus on
personality and less on politics and religion. The evidence was more focused on personality
traits. However, I was able to tie the personality traits back into political preferences.
As stated before, my research had a rough start. I was having trouble finding information
on if there were differences regionally or why these differences exist in the first place. I used
Google and searched for regional differences and was able to find a journal article in a
psychology journal. This source became the centerpiece of my research. It showed findings from
a study on personality traits that are prevalent in certain regions of the United States. This was
invaluable to me being able to see the differences in the regions through studies that were
conducted. Another source focused on the general facts and information about each region. This
was helpful because it explains why these differences exist and the background of each region. I
was not able to use as much social media as I hoped to use in the essay. It was much harder to
find social media or tweets about regional differences than I had expected. I was able to find a
source from the online databases that was very helpful in writing my paper. At first, it was very

hard to use the database to find the information that I was looking for. I eventually found an ebook that contained some very good information about the United States and the different
cultures within the United States. These sources were tremendous in helping me understand
people from different regions of the United States. The research was focused more on the
personality traits of the individuals in each region. This was, of course, a generalization of the
entire population. There was not as much research on religious differences as I expected there
would be. This was somewhat surprising to me. The research really focused on three regions,
those being the South, West, and North. Therefore, my project focused on people from the West
and North. However, other regions were mentioned as well. I narrowed the search from my
initial direction. There was too much information to research every aspect of each region.
The writing process was a little different for this paper. I had never wrote a proposal until
this project. The proposal was very helpful in me getting my initial thoughts down on paper. This
helped me realize that I was going to have to narrow my topic, or I was going to be
overwhelmed. I wrote a rough draft, as I usually do with my papers. This rough draft was
different than my typical rough draft. We had been learning about writing rough drafts, so I
thought I would try something different. I just threw all of my ideas out on paper. I did not worry
about organization or clarity. I just wanted to get my thoughts and facts on paper. This resulted in
me having to write more than one draft, but in my opinion it was very beneficial. The peer
editing between drafts were very helpful. The critique groups helped give me advice on how to
order my paper in a clearer fashion. They also pointed out grammar and other conventional
mistakes. This made reaching the final product a much easier task. The final product was a
mixture of research and reflection. I reflected back on my literacy memoir and how my literacy
has affected the person that I am today. This was related back to people being from different

regions of the United States and how their backgrounds affect their literacy and identity. The
final piece was a revised final copy of my second draft.
This project was unlike any project that I have ever done before. I have never really
researched an identity different from my own before. In high school, I usually wrote papers about
something that I was familiar with. This project made me not only look into someone elses life,
but also reflect it back on my life. As a researcher, I had to look at a variety of resources to be
able to get the best understanding of the people I was researching. I had also not used databases
very extensively. For this project, the e-book I found on the database proved extremely helpful
and important in writing my paper. As a learner, I learned skills from this project that will benefit
me for courses I have to come. I learned about the process of writing drafts, and that it is okay to
write an extremely unpolished rough draft. I also learned how helpful peer editing can be. This
really made my writing flourish in ways that I could not have imagined. The most important skill
I learned in this class and through this project was being a reflective learner. I had to look into an
identity and really try to understand how these people think and act. This required me to be
analytical and do some deep thinking. I had to relate this back to my identity, and that requires
reflective thinking. It is important to stop and think about the things I do and why I do them.
There is usually a reason behind the decisions that are made in and out of the classroom. This
project and course helped me see that, and provided ways to identify it. This will be helpful for
not only other college courses, but also in everyday life for the rest of my life. Being a reflective
learner is one of the most important skills a person can learn.