Reflection on Project 2

Jimmy "porsche racing, Biere Switzerland" June 12, 2005 via Flickr
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In this blog post, I will reflect on my revision process in Project 2.

1. What was specifically revised from one draft to another?
• I had a sort of incremental approach to this essay (and really all essays). My first revision was aimed at removing general errors. Then I moved on to addressing all of the comments on my essay from peer review. Then I once again checked for small errors such as grammar, word choice, and spelling. Then I had my father who is a lawyer and an English major revise the essay for major issues which I fixed after which he did a final check for more minor issues once again.
2. Point to global changes: how did you reconsider your thesis or organization?
• I restructured my thesis after initially having a too general thesis toward having one that clearly elucidated what I was going to say in the essay. I also worked in more analysis to make the essay stronger overall.
3. What led you to these changes? A reconsideration of audience? A shift in purpose?
• Those changes stemmed from shortcomings in the original draft.
4. How do these changes affect your credibility as an author?
• These changes did not really have an impact on my credibility as an author as what I am ultimately writing with a rhetorical analysis piece is an opinion. I am writing what I think the piece is trying to convey and how.
5. How will these changes better address the audience or venue?
• The global changes I made made my essay better reflect the requirements of the assignment.
6. Point to local changes: how did you reconsider sentence structure and style?
• My local changes were minimal. They were simply aimed at making the essay easier to read and easy to understand. My goal here was incremental improvements with the goal of making the essay flow.
7. How will these changes assist your audience in understanding your purpose?
• These changes made my essay (in my opinion), easier to read by making it flow better and reducing awkward moments which hopefully makes the information in the essay easier to absorb.
8. Did you have to reconsider the conventions of the particular genre in which you are writing?
• I guess so. I just had to make sure I wrote a good essay that provided in-depth analysis.
9. Finally, how does the process of reflection help you reconsider your identity as a writer?
• I think the process of reflection makes you think about what you actually did and why you did those things. That brings you to a place where you can then reflect on and consider if your choices were actually effective.

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Reflection

I replied to this self-same post on Victoria's blog and on Chelsea's blog. I think Victoria and I had some very similar experiences with the revision process. We both worked very hard to make good these based around solid factual evidence from the pieces we were analyzing. We also gained a lot from talking to Professor Bottai about our essays.

Chelsea and I had a rather more different experience, I think. She worked a lot more on having an engaging introduction and conclusion that would be easy for readers to absorb. Her thesis also started out pretty strong. my experience was essentially reversed. Though my essay was okay, I had to adapt my thesis to be more effective considering the entire essay. My writing, on the other had, tends to be pretty engaging and easy to read.