Blog Reflection On Research For The Appalachian Trail Essay:

September 14th, 2022

Reflecting on what I learned during the process of writing my first essay of my college career, I discovered lots of details about the writing process, using evidence, and making sure the essay flowed and read smoothly. However, one of the most interesting takeaways from the essay was the importance of the research phase. One major lesson I learned from everything was that the research ahead of time was about fifty percent of the essay process. After the research, it dawned on me that writing the actual essay itself was the easy part. As the topic of the essay was Covid-19 on the Appalachian Trail, the research for this led me to a website called Trail Journals. On this website, hikers who were walking the Appalachian Trail at the same time Covid reached the United States wrote about their experiences. Once I found all the information on these hikers on the website, I spent hours researching people who were on the trail on March 14, 2020. Once I found one entry, it led me to another. Soon after, it led me to more. After three hours of research, the knowledge I collected was immense, and I was ready to write an essay. What I discovered from my research was not just the information needed to craft an essay, but so much more deep information than I imagined. I uncovered the thought process, the planning, and the decision making motives of many different hikers at the time. It allowed me to put myself in the shoes of those hikers and actually think to myself about what I would do if I was in the same situation they were in. I learned about so many different people that I started having to take notes just on names so that I would remember whose who. Taking notes on this topic not only helped me understand what people were thinking at the time of the pandemic's arrival in such a remote location, but a new idea on the diversity of problem solving. Everybody solves problems in different ways, and reading journal accounts dove into this idea so much further. With some people choosing to leave the trail, some people adjusting their plans, and some people just choosing to give the ATC the bird, reading about all these perspectives made me think crucially about my own problem solving skills. In the end, the research process in this essay was one of the most interesting research processes that I have ever had with an essay. All in all, the research was not only interesting, but it made me think about who I am when it comes to dealing with difficult situations.