Learning Outcome 1
In my second essay for this class, I think I’ve demonstrated the most significant change from first to final draft. I went through several steps to change the essay at several different levels. From the perspective of global editing, I reordered several paragraphs to make the text as a whole more cohesive, and even rewrote an entire paragraph. The paragraph that I rewrote was about STEAM education, which I edited to explain the source essay more and make the overall argument make more sense. My process for this paper was significantly improved from my first paper, in which most of my edits were local revisions, and I was afraid to move around paragraphs and change major aspects of the writing. During my second paper, I realized that going over my paper multiple times for specific things each time would help improve the final essay. For example, I would look over my paper one time looking for ways I could make the claim sentences and evidence better, then I would look for ways to restructure the paragraphs, then I would look for ways to improve individual sentences. This made it easier to improve several sections of the paper with one main level of focus. I think that this strategy of recursive editing really improved the final drafts of my papers.
Learning Outcome 2
Through all of our essays, we’ve been given sources to choose quotes from and to argue for or against. Because of this argumentative format, it’s been important for me to choose quotes from these sources that accurately portray the idea I’m trying to explain in my essay. Usually I’ve chosen to put in quotes that summarize or state the main idea that I’m trying to explain or argue with. I’ve made improvements to how I explain quotes, as I now know the best ways to introduce and explain a quote. I need to explain the author, the text the quote came from, and what context it was used in, so the reader can fully understand what it means. For example, In my second paper, I quoted a source by saying, “In “We Must Protect U.S. Investment in Scientific Knowledge” Mark B. Boslough states that, “A good scientist does not allow personal feelings to get in the way of evidence.” The preservation of the scientific method and objectivity is crucial to science – without it, we can’t even call it science, but pseudoscience.” This effectively introduces and explains my source and quote, and I feel that I’ve improved significantly from the beginning of the year on doing this.
Learning Outcome 3
Before this class, I rarely, if ever, actively read anything. For the most part, I would take any writing I read at face value, and not really ask questions about why or how it was being written. I think that this questioning of the text we’ve been encouraged to do has helped me learn how I can better understand texts, especially argumentative ones. Throughout my annotated reading, I’ve mostly questioned why an author argues or thinks something, mostly because I’ve disagreed with one thing or another in all of the texts we’ve read. This asking of why an author is saying something has really helped me understand what kind of idea or argument they’re trying to say. In “Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard”, Susan Gilroy talk about this, saying that, “Analyzing adds an evaluative component to the summarizing process… What is the writer asserting? What am I being asked to believe or accept? Facts? Opinions? Some mixture? What reasons or evidence does the author supply to convince me? Where is the strongest or most effective evidence the author offers…?” Having this sort of mindset when reading has been valuable to me. Asking questions like “What does this mean?” and “Why?” have been less useful to me when disseminating the literal text, as most of those questions are usually answered by the text in a short time. However, I’ve still used these strategies, because I’ve found them helpful to slowing down and being able to remember the text later on.
Learning Outcome 4
Throughout this class, I have improved my critiquing process, both for my own and other’s works. The global revisions have been mostly in the 150-word comments at the end of my sentence-level revisions. In a recent peer review session, I commented on my peer’s essay, “Also you tended to talk about how the claim relates to business at the end of paragraphs, but I felt like it wasn’t very comprehensive and you should either try to integrate it more into the rest of the paragraph or make a new paragraph just to talk about how business relates to empathy.” This was an example of a comprehensive global edit suggestion. These peer reviews also helped me edit my own work, as some of the problems in my essays were easier to identify in others’ essays. I could then use this knowledge to fix the problem in my work. I think that having these peer reviews has improved my essays a lot.
Learning Outcome 5 and 6
Before taking this class, I had a pretty good understanding of MLA formatting, but I have still improved in minor ways. There were some aspects of MLA that I did not know about, like indenting longer quotes, or that you don’t have to use parenthetical citation if you introduce the author and work the quote comes from beforehand. Regardless, I have learned to properly cite my sources using the works cited page so that readers can know where I am getting my information from. My process for local revisions has been similar. I did not have any significant problems with typos or grammatical errors before this class, but I have perfected my sentence structure. Before this class I had a problem with run-on sentences, but I feel that I have improved significantly in this aspect of my writing. I’ve gotten better at avoiding run-ons and breaking them up whenever they occur.
