Outcome I (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).
This learning outcome is focused on revising in ways that strengthen the ideas and structure of a project between first and final drafts, and in final editing/proofreading at the end of a project.
Revisit your early revision work this term and consider any changes to your revision process/understanding since the beginning of the term. Once you make a decision about your Chosen Work Sample, open both your first and final drafts to help you make a side-by-side comparison that reveals substantive changes. Take notes on paper as you make a comparison. Expect to write 250-500 words. I encouraged you to notice changes in particular areas, and your framing of learning should consider discussing revisions in some/all of those areas:
● Introduction
● Evidence & Explanations
● Reorganization
● New Paragraphs
● More Local Changes
On my final project, which was my research paper, I made quite a few revisions, both small and substantial, to make this essay well put together. One of the first things that I did was get rid of a lot of unnecessary details that were making the personal story portion of my essay much longer than was needed to be effective. As this was close to the introduction of my essay, I needed a story that would interest the reader, but not drag on with many details that were not relevant to what the paper was about. I also went through the whole paper and made better transitions between the quotes/research and the broader picture of the essay, as when I first put them in, I was looking more for where they should go than how I could make them fit. After I went through the research that I had, I saw that it was not as embedded in the whole paper as I wanted it to be, so I added additional research in the places where I thought it was lacking a little bit. I also got rid of part of a paragraph describing explaining how storytelling could be useful, since I had already said as much earlier. So instead, I replaced it with information from an article that I had found which described how Native Americans had used stories to encourage sustainability for the next generation, which I thought was poignant to put in, as we could learn a lot from that point of view. Overall, I didn’t really need to reorganize any of my paragraphs, as they all fit quite well together in the order I had already placed them, so it was mostly transitions between them that needed some work. Specifically, my transition between where I discussed storytelling then changed to talking about cosmopolitanism, it was very jarring to read, and didn’t flow as well as I wanted, so that transition was fixed.
