Learning Outcome 1:
My chosen Significant Writing Project is project #3. My first draft of the paper looks very different from my final draft, in more ways than one. Global revision was a major focus of my revision process for this paper. In the early writing stages, I feel like my ideas were all over the place and very unorganized. In the first draft, it is clear that I do not have a thesis. My ideas weren’t developed yet, and I had no idea what direction this paper would go. In the final draft, I have a thesis: “Humans have a tendency to ignore what makes us uncomfortable, because it allows us to live in a world where nothing bad happens to us and we don’t inflict that kind of pain onto other beings.” In the first draft, the second paragraph is underdeveloped, and you can see in the final draft that I expanded on ideas. My introduction in the first draft also needed work to sort of frame out my paper. In my final draft, I added sentences to include what I had actually written about. This contributes to global revision because it was a process of developing my ideas.
Local revision was something I focused on at the end as I fine-tuned everything. In the first draft, I made marginal comments every time I used a word I didn’t like, or a sentence felt it wasn’t worded correctly. I kept track of these throughout all of my drafts, and in the final draft you can see I corrected them. In the first draft, I had written, “Facing one’s mortality can be uncomfortable…” and I had already used the word “uncomfortable” several times leading up to that sentence. I made a marginal comment to find a synonym, and in the final draft I wrote, “Facing one’s mortality can be distressing…” This was much better to me.
These revisions show that I was actively developing my ideas and correcting mistakes throughout the writing process. I made changes that I thought would help my ideas connect easily. I also made small, local changes that I thought would enhance my paper.
Learning Outcome 2:
Sources were vital in crafting a conversation between my ideas and the ideas of the authors who I referenced. In the final draft of my third project, I tried to use quotes from the sources that really highlighted the ideas I was trying to pull from them. When trying to integrate Caitlin Doughty into this paper, I found she said something that really stuck with me about witness cremations. This quote from Doughty, seen in the highlighted text in the image below, perfectly tied into my idea that people avoided death because of the level of responsibility we may feel, which makes us uncomfortable. I later used her quote and one from David Foster Wallace to create a text-on-text moment in which I contrasted the ideas each of them presented. Text-on-text moments were something introduced to me during class discussion and I really think they can enhance different ideas. Earlier in the semester I used quotes that all agreed with each other; all my sources were saying the same thing. Even in earlier drafts of this paper, I had chosen a different quote from Wallace that agreed with Doughty and myself. I changed it at the end because I wanted to try a new direction and I realized that my sources didn’t necessarily need to agree with me, which shows a lot of development. This is an idea we wrestled with in class. We discussed how it can elevate your writing to show contrasting ideas, which is something I tried to incorporate into this paper. This is something I normally wouldn’t have been brave enough to do, but as my writing developed, I realized it would make my writing more interesting.
Learning Outcome 3:
My personal approach to active reading starts with holding a pen or pencil in my hand the entire time I’m reading a text. It helps me remember that I need to be marking up the text while I’m reading, which helps me with learning outcome 3. As I’m reading, I underline things that are interesting to me. This helps me stay engaged and interested in the piece. I also underline things that seem to be the author’s thesis and main arguments. I will also usually make a note of these in the margin, which allows me to clearly see almost a summary of the important parts without having to do another deep read. Gilroy refers to this as “seeing the skeleton” of a text, which can be helpful for more difficult readings. Any time I question something in a text, I make a note of it in the margin. This could be something I disagree with or maybe something I don’t understand. These can also be points of discussion in class or in a journal entry. I also find it helpful to underline or make a note of whenever I make a connection to another text we’ve read in class or to another theme we’ve discussed in class. Gilroy mentions this and shows that it allows you to ask many more questions about a text. This can also contribute to in class discussions. In the Course Reading Annotation pages I have chosen, I have highlighted quotes I found curious, interesting, or important and dissected the passages in the margin. In the Informal Reading Response Evidence, I pulled quotes from my annotations to discuss. The annotations made that particular journal entry easier because I was able to pull from what I underlined that I found interesting or a main point and then was able to discuss it. I think this says that my ability to “interrogate” readings allows me to further understand and better discuss different texts that I read.
Learning Outcome 4:
During my peer review of Haley’s paper, I tried to focus mostly on global comments. I struggle with global revision for myself, so I figured it would help to see how I could revise someone else’s paper globally. I tried to point out ideas that she was touching upon that, if elaborated, could build her argument. I also pointed out places where she could use evidence from her sources to support her ideas. There were also places where the structure of her paper made it hard to follow, so I suggested that she break one large paragraph into two smaller ones to help keep the readers’ attention. I tried to give her ideas at the end of her draft about different directions she could take her paper, seen in the image below in comment nine. This comment shows that I was able to give global feedback, as what I’m suggesting pertains to the overall argument of her paper. Another global feedback comment I gave was I pointed out a spot in one of her body paragraphs where pulling a quote from David Foster Wallace would create a contrasting text-on-text moment with Andersen, seen in comment 6 in the image below. Text-on-text moments can support your argument or add interest when they contrast. I also did try to provide some local feedback where I thought it would be helpful, like in comment one in the image below. In this comment, I made a suggestion to add a coma into a sentence to make it one sentence rather than two choppy ones. I thought this helped the flow of her introductory paragraph. Of course, there’s always room for improvement and I think in the future I could work on providing more in-depth global comments.
Comment 9
Comment 6
Comment 1
Learning Outcomes 5 & 6:
My chosen Significant Writing Project is Project #3. I think this project shows my ability to cite sources following MLA guidelines. At the end of this paper, I put a Works Cited page on a separate page to document the three sources I used during this paper. As seen in the image below, I followed MLA guidelines for each type of source used, including the last one which was a podcast. I also correctly cited each source in text, as seen in the two images below. I referenced the author of the source before giving the quote, meaning that in the parenthetical citation, I only needed to list the page number. This was something we discussed in class before the first paper, when going over MLA conventions. I also quoted a longer quote in a block quote style, following MLA conventions (seen in the image below).
This paper is a good example of my ability to control sentence-level errors. This local revision is something I actually find easier if I keep track of my grammar, punctuation and spelling as I go along. I find that this way I have less to fix when going through local revision at the end of the writing process.
Works Cited
In Text Citations
Block quotation
