Reflection on Project 2

In this post, I will reflect on Project 2 by answering nine questions from Writing Public Lives page 520.

geralt, "Think Thinking Reflect Light Bulb Thoughts Flash." February 2015 via Pixabay Public Domain License.

1. What was specifically revised from one draft to another?

When revising, I spent a lot of time on my introduction and conclusion, as they were not communicating exactly what I wanted to communicate for this assignment. To revise these, I spend a lot of time narrowing my focus and editing my thesis accordingly. My first draft was also very long, with lots of long, repetitive sentences. Because of this, I also had to revise my essay to make it shorter and more concise.

2. Point to global changes: how did you reconsider your thesis and organization?

I revised my thesis so that it was more concise and gave a clear indication of which rhetorical strategies I was going to talk about in the essay. I also had to edit to make sure the thesis had a clear argument, and not just a summary. After this, I edited my organization so that it followed the thesis logically. I had to pay special attention to ensure that each paragraph focused on a single point and not multiple points.

3. What led you to these changes? A reconsideration of audience? A shift of purpose?

These changes came about due mostly to a shift in purpose. I realized that my draft focused more on the content of the article and less on the actual rhetorical strategies used in the article. To fix this, I had to revise my thesis statement and the content of the essay to reflect this newly defined purpose.

4. How do these changes affect your credibility as an author?

I think these changes increase my credibility as an author. The changes helped me have a more clearly defined thesis and concise argument, and this could potentially increase my reliability as an author. I have found that authors with concise, clearly written arguments often come across as more credible, so these changes might have had that effect as well.

5. How will these changes better address the audience or venue?

This changes made my argument more clear, which could make the writing more accessible to my audience. This audience, composed of college freshmen in my field, are likely not trained to read more dense works. By shortening my argument and making it more concise, these changes made it more clear for this particular audience to read.

6. Point to local changes: how did you reconsider sentence structure and style?

Before editing, I found that I had a lot of long, rambling sentences with dependent clauses. These sentences were often repetitive, and not very clear in communicating my point. To fix this, I tried to shorten my sentences and use simpler structures that my audience would have an easier time understanding.

7. How will these changes assist your audience in understanding your purpose?

These changes will help my audience understand my purpose more easily. The simpler sentence structures helped make my sentences shorter and more easy to understand. This should help the audience understand my argument more clearly, since the sentences are more to the point.

8. Did you have to reconsider the conventions of the particular genre in which you are writing?

When I first began writing this essay, I was still used to writing in the genre of a QRG. Because of this, my tone was a little more informal than it should have been, and my paragraph were shorter with less information and evidence in them. However, I had to reconsider the conventions when revising, because the genre of an analytic essay is very different from that of a QRG. To do this, I added more evidence and followed the format of an analytic essay more closely. I also had to change my tone accordingly.

9. Finally, how does the process of reflection help you reconsider your identity as a writer?

This reflection helped me realize that I do edit a lot more than I initially thought I did. This reflection showed me that, while I was writing my first draft, I more or less put all of my ideas onto paper without really organizing my thoughts and arguments. While revising, I got more of an idea of what my argument should actually focus on, and I edited my essay accordingly. This process showed me that my writing process does vary considerably depending on the type of paper I am writing.

Reflection

For this reflection, I read Casey and Andrea's posts. I found that there were some things that we had similar experiences with, and others that I had a different experience with. It sounds like the revision process was very helpful for both of them, as it was for me. This process seemed to really help us make our arguments  more clear and concise.

While both of my peers had an easier time writing in this genre, I found that I struggled a bit with this at first. I was a bit more accustomed to writing in an informal manner when I went into this project, so I definitely had to get used to writing in an analytic tone. However, once I got back into the swing of things, I had a much easier time with this.