(Recursive Process) – Demonstrate the ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision). (Word Count: 535)
At the beginning of this semester, my understanding of the revision process was to proofread a piece of writing once through to look for sentence-level errors. This local revision process was usually rushed, and took place five minutes before I handed in my work. The issue here was that my essay grades in high school were strong, and therefore I didn’t see the value of revising work any other way. It wasn’t until this year when I actually started engaging with a piece of writing that I came to value, and thus develop, a complete revision process.
My understanding of global revision developed from peer reviewing the work of my classmates. As I read through a piece of writing looking for the author’s claims, quote sandwiches, thesis statement etc., I began to think about my own work. When I went back to revise my own rough drafts, I identified areas that I thought needed to be expanded, changed, or taken out.
When I wrote the conclusion to my first paper, I felt the need to have a short ending. I thought I was best served to quickly summarize my arguments with my thesis statement, and not introduce new ideas. The conclusion of my Paper #1 rough draft (Image 1) is nothing more than a short opening sentence and my thesis statement.
Rough Draft – Paper #1 Conclusion Paragraph
As I read through my paper a few days later, my conclusion felt alienated from the rest of my essay. I had done a good job expanding ideas and explaining quotes in my body paragraphs, but the conclusion felt short and out of place. Furthermore, it lacked the symmetry of my long introduction and therefore didn’t seem like a natural ending to the essay. When revising this paragraph I tried to implement my own voice and final thoughts on the subject, while pushing the conversation further with a question to the reader.
Final Draft – Paper #1 Conclusion Paragraph
Going through the global revision process helped me assess the strength of my conclusion paragraph and allowed me to identify the need for expansion. Another example of how engaging in global revision strengthened my first essay was when I looked at how my claims supported my thesis statement. As I went through the paper, I noticed my fourth paragraph didn’t have much to do with my thesis: “Using the concrete psychological and physiological research of Robin Dunbar, Maria Konnikova convinces me that social media and virtual interactions cannot replicate the importance of physical ones”. My fourth argumentative paragraph argued that social media was used as a weapon to spread hate and mistrust.
Rough Draft – Paper #1 Argumentative Paragraph 4
After assessing how unsupportive this paragraph was of my thesis statement, I decided to get rid of it completely. Instead, I used the space in my essay to introduce a naysayer paragraph (Image 4) which added credibility to my paper. Furthermore, I realized that the quote I had used from Nausicaa Renner’s, “How Social Media Shapes Our Identity”, actually supported my second argumentative paragraph about how an insufficiency of physical interaction can interfere in the development of social skills (Image 5).
Final Draft – Paper #1 Naysayer Paragraph
Final Draft – Paper #1 Argumentative Paragraph #2
The revision process indeed helped me improve the quality of my paragraphs. Engaging in global revision with my conclusion and fourth argumentative paragraph helped strengthen and focus my paper.
