Month: November 2020

(Integrating Ideas) – Be able to integrate their ideas with others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources. (Word Count: 360)

At the beginning of this semester, my approach to integrating an author’s voice with my own was limited to quoting. And even then, quoting was difficult and often felt unnatural. I would copy and paste an excerpt from a text into my writing and leave it there like an island. This is to say I wouldn’t add any explanation of the quote, or how it related to my argument. This hindered my ability to substantiate claims and add credibility to my writing.

The single greatest technique that helped me join an author’s voice with my own was the quote sandwich. The quote sandwich showed me how to introduce a quote, and then purposefully summarize it in a way that related it back to my own argument. This drastically improved my ability to put my arguments in conversation with the ideas of others, and therefore increased the impression of flow in my writing.   

After learning about the quote sandwich, there wasn’t a single time throughout the semester when I didn’t use it to frame a quote. In this example (Image 1), I introduce the argument that a liberal arts education teaches us to choose what to think about (blue); I then use the quote (green); and lastly, I repackage the meaning of the quote to filter it within the lens of my argument (orange).  

Thoroughly unpacking the quote in this instance allowed me to mold Foster Wallace’s claim to my own. I show how an education that teaches you how to think is an education that allows you to change the way you view the world. Continuously unpacking quotes also helped me develop an understanding of paraphrasing and summarizing. The last part of a quote sandwich is already the process of redefining the author’s words into your own. The example in Image 2 demonstrates how I come close to quoting Foster Wallace, but slightly paraphrase the quote to use him in the third person.

This use of paraphrasing allowed me to describe Foster Wallace’s argument in a way that put my voice back into the writing, and avoids the sense of summary with a barrage of quotes.    

(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.

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.   

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.   

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).

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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.

Most Improved Learning Outcome:

#2 Be able to integrate their ideas with those of others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources.

I believe I have improved the most on integrating my ideas with those of the authors and their writing pieces. The two major ways I have been able to improve this learning outcome has been by making my voice my present, and quote sandwiches. Eliminating the stigma around using personal pronouns while also using personal, argumentative, language has greatly helped me integrate my ideas into my writing. Before I was always told to stay away from making academic writing personal, but now I understand that argumentative writing should be personal as it is ultimately me who is trying persuade readers. Secondly, quote sandwiches have really helped me put my ideas in conversation with writing pieces. With a clear introduction and analysis of a quote, I have greatly improved my ability to naturally integrate the ideas of others with my own. This has also helped me outline what I want the reader to specifically see in the quote, and how it directly connects to my argument. Without this focused introduction and analysis of the quote, an excerpt from any piece of writing would feel like an island standing in the middle of the paragraph. This would not only hinder my ability to support an argument with sources, but also hinder my ability to put my voice in conjunction with that of somebody else.

Needs More Attention:

 #6 Control sentence-level error (grammar, punctuation, spelling).

When I assess the quality of my work so far this semester, I feel as though my sentence-level writing needs more attention. I feel as though my overall essays have been strong, but that strength has really come from paragraph structures, quote sandwiches, and strong arguments. In other words, I feel as though the greatest writing strength is at the global level. I have noticed however that each individual sentence definitely needs more attention. I often get bogged down in creating these very wordy sentences that can often times be too long. I think this is because I have a lot of ideas that I want to get onto the page, and in doing so I overcomplicate and overload a single sentence. Consequently, paragraphs can lack the impression of flow and can be difficult to read aloud (lack rhythm). I have identified four major ways in which I can improve on this learning outcome. Firstly, reading more will greatly improve my ability to naturally form strong sentences. By experiencing good writing, I’ll be able to get a better sense of how writing should sound, and will then be able to write sentences that feel more natural and sound more clear. Secondly, I think dressing down more sentences will help me create writing that flows nicer. I tend to dress up and complicate words (especially in academic writing), which ultimately hurts my ability to form easy-reading sentences. Thirdly, improving my ability to transition from one sentence to the next with transitioning terms and ideas that flow in a logical order. In other words, breaking up sentences into smaller ideas, that all flow one after the other will help sentences be compact and easier to read. This will help eliminate my problem of really long sentences that are breath-drainers. Lastly, eliminating all the fluff and redundant parts of sentences. I have a weird tendency to repeat myself a lot in sentences. By eliminating all the useless words and ideas in a sentence will also help in shortening them up. I think if I can do all of these better/more, then I will be able to improve this learning outcome by the end of the semester.