Blog #7

First of all, my third draft of Assignment #1 is clearly better because my teacher says it’s improved. Without this feedback, I was still relatively confident that my essay improved, since I systematically reviewed each paragraph and each sentence, for its support towards my final argument. For each paragraph and sentence, I asked myself, “how does this help my argument?”
It is usually very beneficial for my writing if I do this, since I tend to just write without direction, occasionally pressing “enter” to start a new paragraph at whim. During revision I have the chance to actually think about these things, rather than trying to revise as I think about what words to type.
During revision I also reread my essay for colloquial terms, another tendency in my writing. Even in academic work, I tend to write like I am talking instead, using very casual words. Also, I tend to forget how each sentence I write contributes to my argument, as I take tangential routes. When I digress, I leave more room open to question, or what I like to call doubtful “holes” in my argument. This is where I’m most likely to overgeneralize to patch holes over, without adequate specific support.
However, the revision I am most proud of is my stronger statement of a claim in the introduction, when I originally left my claim vague and open to assumption. This was fixed using the groundbreaking copy and paste tool at my discretion. My thesis has improved, somewhat. At least I can now locate it in my introduction. I’ve done all I can do, for now. The next step will be to wait a few days, weeks, until I can come back to this essay with a fresh start and begin to revise it, word by word.