1. Writing as a recursive process
For my first English paper I wasn’t very excited to write it not going to lie. the writing assignment was based upon whether we related to Ronald Barnett’s view on higher education, Martha Nussbaum’s view on higher education, or both. We were required to make a rough draft that would be peer edited in the following class. I have learned my lesson and have realized to make my final copy on a completely different document. In my second essay I made a rough draft and a final copy and the difference from rough to final is astonishing.
Final Essay #1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QAppmojBZ-VLvB_nit5PFz5jsXkxZAoDSbQYappAFhI/edit
In my rough draft for Essay #2 I did not self edit as much as I normally would have because I wanted to see what others had to offer before I self evaluated. Many corrections were MLA citations, comma splices, too much detail in the intro, and word structure confusion.
Rough Draft Essay #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rgibBUy83fOK1x1kb7GcteHoQczcPjY2F3VjkW-3-wU/edit
From rough draft to final draft, I changed a lot of the essay. I shortened my Introduction paragraph and made the details of the intro in my rough draft a whole separate paragraph in the final draft. My MLA citations improved as well, but I still had some confusion with sentences and I can build upon ideas and things I have stated in the essay. To do so on my final essay I will support my ideas more and hopefully receive the grade I have been working for.
Final Draft Essay #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l6u-XsFloxGIUJ66jqsyid0xZkLzMUMfTs_0ZWTfl2c/edit
2. Integrating your ideas with those of others
Using what other people have said in an essay or paper can be substantial in the way the paper or essay is. The use of them could draw the reader out from your point of view or the main topic and realize that others are also thinking the same. Using quotes can provide examples and real life scenarios of what the main topic or topic at the moment is. An example of this can be found in my in my final draft of Essay #2 on page three when I use Charles Duhigg’s three part process to create better ways of creating better Immigration.
Final Draft Essay #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l6u-XsFloxGIUJ66jqsyid0xZkLzMUMfTs_0ZWTfl2c/edit
Integrating quotes is a key factor in providing examples for the reader. It also helps the reader see what you are trying to explain with the usage of what the creator of the three part process said and how you are connecting to that.
We also learned how to write a naysayer paragraph. A naysayer paragraph is a paragraph in which the writer contradicts what he is saying with the opinion of others. I will be sure to use one in my final essay as I did not use one in this essay. It slipped my mind and I will be sure to use the naysayer structure to contradict myself in my final essay. I did however write a naysayer paragraph this year as a homework assignment, and that can be found below using the link. The naysayer paragraph is titled “Why should we care about Social change?”, and you just have to scroll down the page to find it.
Naysayer paragraph: https://cspino1.uneportfolio.org/
3. Active, critical reading
Annotating is a huge part in critical and active reading. If you aren’t engaged in what you are reading, you are reading incorrectly in my opinion. You should always have a pen, highlighter, or pencil on hand to underline or highlight great points made. Write comments in the margins or use sticky notes to write comments on them and stick those under the sentence you connected with or in the margin. Do not be afraid to ask questions as to why certain things happened. Those questions can lead to amazing class discussions and conversations with professors. I started annotating when I was in seventh grade by using small sticky notes. I hated annotating mostly because my seventh grade English teacher required we had 10-15 annotations per chapter. Once I left that class and moved into each following year, I could not read a book or a reading assignment without annotating somehow. It changed the way I view each piece of literature and I can go back to them to refresh my memory and connect to the piece each time I read my highlighted marks or read my comments. I have two pictures of my underlines, comments, and questions below.
4. Critiquing your own and others’ work
In critiquing my own work I have found that if I am not so detail oriented and don’t focus too much on the local revisions, global revisions will become better. In my second essay I needed more local than global revisions this time which is perfect because I have always had a problem with flow and organization. I wanted to focus more on my flow of the essay rather than the local revisions because I knew my peer evaluator(s) would cover the local revisions quite well. Linked below is my rough draft of my second essay and you can see that I have more local revisions to change than global.
Rough Draft Essay #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rgibBUy83fOK1x1kb7GcteHoQczcPjY2F3VjkW-3-wU/edit
Feedback for other peers is hard to do because when I go in to do it, I already see my comments made and why would I comment the same issue that someone has already commented to fix. It does make me look like I am not working as hard as them, but I am however noticing the same changes as them. The link below is the link for Allison Hureau’s Social Movement paper.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tqB7BylNnpPdcmrXDOkS8–hBEy3qQM5cokFV6HQeEk/edit
As you can see I did have comments there, but they weren’t very prominent and I felt myself saying them because I had to not because I needed to. Most on my comments were already stated by Aaron Ramos.
5. Using MLA citation
MLA citation is a major key when citing what someone else said or the work that someone else has done. If not cited correctly the reader that wants to go and find that literary work can have trouble finding it easily. Citing your work helps because you will not be caught for plagiarism and you are giving credit to the person that originally stated the quote. From my rough draft to my final draft, I had MLA citation errors which is great because it gave me the knowledge of how to create it correctly for the next paper and in the future as well. The links below are to my rough and final draft of the second essay we were required to write.
Rough Draft #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rgibBUy83fOK1x1kb7GcteHoQczcPjY2F3VjkW-3-wU/edit
Final Draft #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l6u-XsFloxGIUJ66jqsyid0xZkLzMUMfTs_0ZWTfl2c/edit
As you can see in the rough draft, I have a MLA citation error on page 4 and 5 of the essay. In the final draft you can see how I correctly cited it and now I have learned the proper way of MLA citation for the next essay and future papers. Usually MLA citation is not an issue for me, but I have been having trouble citing my sources in college. Throughout high school and middle school it was not an issue, I guess I was either taught wrong or I had just forgotten how to properly cite my sources. This is plausible because I have learned so many other things since then.
6. Managing individual error patterns
I had more local errors than I have had in the past. Comma splices are still an issue but I shall fix that in the future. MLA citation in this paper was also a common issue, but overall it was just being too wordy when I shouldn’t be and not wordy enough when I should have been. In your write up for my second essay you had many questions that I should have answered and this could have lengthened my paper also and allowed more clarification and understanding for the reader. Overall the errors are being diminished and for my third and final essay I shall fix these errors and hopefully obtain the grade I have been working for all semester. Linked below are my rough and final draft for essay number two and the comments from my peer evaluators will provide the places of error and the areas that I need to fix. In reading my final draft you can see that I had fixed a majority of these errors, but still need clarification and more details to support my ideas.
Rough Draft #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rgibBUy83fOK1x1kb7GcteHoQczcPjY2F3VjkW-3-wU/edit
Final Draft #2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l6u-XsFloxGIUJ66jqsyid0xZkLzMUMfTs_0ZWTfl2c/edit
