Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 2)

Sentence level error: Control sentence-level error (grammar, punctuation, spelling)

Controlling sentence level error is just as important as global errors. You can have really good ideas, but if your essay is filled with grammatical errors, people are less likely to see your ideas as valid. Grammatical errors can also make an essay hard to read. People will focus on the constant misspelling of words or improper use of commas and periods instead of focusing on your ideas.

Work Sample 1: Grammatical error in essay 1.

This is an example of a grammatical error that I should have caught before submitting my essay. The extra comma in the highlighted sentence messes up the flow of the sentence by adding an unnecessary pause.

Work Sample 2: Body paragraph from essay 3.

Here is an example of a properly used comma. The comma allows for a short dramatic pause and allows the sentence to flow without being a run on sentence.

Document work MLA: Document their work using appropriate conventions (MLA)

Citing your sources it very important in every type of writing. When using others ideas you must give them the proper recognition. Failing to do so is considered plagiarism. Plagiarizing someone else’s work may not seem like a big deal when you’re in school because there aren’t any real world ramifications. In reality plagiarizing someones work can not only damage your academic record, but it can also ruin your reputation when you leave school.

Work Sample 1: Citation from a body paragraph from essay 3.

Here is an example of citing a paraphrase . Even though I didn’t use the quote in the authors words, I still had to give him credit because I used the idea just in my own words. Because I didn’t use the authors name prior to the quote, I included the authors last name and the page number I got the idea from.

Work Sample 2: Works cited page from essay 3.

This is an example of a works cited page. Works cited pages are used to fully cite the essay from which the quotes were taken from so the reader can reference them if needed. Citations may look different depending on what type of source they are from. For example the citation for DFW has extra information, like where the speech was given, because it is a speech and not an essay.

Peer Review: Be able to critique their own and others’ work by emphasizing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the process.

When I was in high school I never found peer review to be helpful. I used to always say that word had spell check so peer review was useless. I had no clue that peer review wasn’t supposed to only be focused on sentence level errors. Learning about global revision not only helped me better help my peers, but it helped me look at the bigger picture when writing my own essay. During this course I realized that peer review is a vital tool to be used in the writing process. I found myself relying heavily on the comments left by my peers. I have a bad habit of briefly mentioning my ideas, but not going in depth because I think they make sense. It was nice to have someone who I haven’t told my stories to look over my stories and tell me if they make sense or not. I also found that reviewing my classmates essays helped me in my writing process. I was able to see how others explained their points and that helped me consolidate and better explain my points. It was also nice to see the positive comments left by my peers. I had never thought that showing what others did well would help in the writing process. When someone would leave a positive comment, it would increase my confidence in my writing and give me motivation when I felt stuck.

Work Sample 1: Comment left on a body paragraph from essay 1.

This is an example of a positive comment left by a classmate. It was very encouraging to see that I was properly using my personal experiences to back up my thesis.

Work Sample 2: Comment left on a body paragraph from essay 1.

This is an example of someone pointing out where I could elaborate more. When drafting the essay I thought that one sentence would be enough to get my point across. It was helpful to hear that explaining something that I thought may be irrelevant could help make the essay more interesting.

Active Reading: Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.

Annotating sources can be helpful in connecting with and understanding the piece you are reading. It is a very helpful tool to engage with the source. However, I never found that annotating sources helped me in my writing process. In the past and now I haven’t ever used annotating as a tool in my process. It helps me stay focused and understand the essay, but I didn’t find myself using my annotations directly or indirectly in my essays or reading responses. The reading responses however did help directly in my writing process. I used the reading responses as a note sheet. I was able to use the responses as a place to write down quotes that I would go on to use in my essay. Below is a paragraph from the “Unfollow” by Adrian Chen reading response.

Work Sample 1: Paragraph from Chen reading response.

Work Sample 2: Body paragraph from Essay 1.

When I began writing essay 1 I started my draft with a list of quotes I may want to use. I went through my reading response and the essay itself to find quotes to build my essay around. I was able to take this quote and use it in my essay then build a paragraph off of it.

Work Sample 3: Response to question 1 from the DFW reading response.

This reading response helped me tremendously with the second essay. When starting that essay I struggled with figuring out how to state my point and which side I was going to take. I was very confused on how I was going to consolidate my thoughts on empathy and how I was going to use the sources to strengthen my ideas. This response helped me piece together my ideas and allowed me to focus on which parts of DFWs essay I was going to pull quotes from.

Recursive process: Demonstrate the ability to approach writing as a recursive process that require substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision).

When I was in high school I always thought revision was only sentence level. I was never taught to look at the big picture ideas. During this class I learned how to move past the little sentence level errors and focus more on the big picture. The thing that helped me the most was learning how to write a shitty first draft. When writing papers I used to edit and revise as I went which made the writing process long and miserable. Now I word vomit onto my word doc and slowly edit from there.

Image 1: Body paragraph Essay 3

This paragraph isn’t quite word vomit but it’s no where near final draft quality. This paragraph was created out of my word vomit. The ideas still aren’t specific and you can only kind of see what I was getting at.

Image 2: Revised body paragraph from essay 3

In the revised paragraph I do a better job of getting my point across. Instead of giving a lot of unneeded detail before bringing in my personal experience, I gave a quick and concise intro to my claim and got right to the point.

I have found that revision is the most important tool a writer can have in their tool box. Being able to write down every idea that comes to mind then just piece them together can help prevent writers block and produce a very quality product. Focusing more on the big picture ideas can also help ensure that your essay doesn’t just flow well, but that it stays on topic.

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

I’ve found that source integration doesn’t only help with backing up my claims, but it can also strengthen my personal experiences. Learning to merge my experience with the experiences of others helped give my writing more strength. At the start of the course I relied solely on what I was taught in high school. In my first and second essays I rarely used partial quotes or paraphrasing, and I used the same signal phrase for each quote. I didn’t know any different, so the tools I was given in the course helped tremendously. By the last essay my use of source integration flowed way better and I was able use quotes more efficiently.

Image 1: This is an example of a quote from my second essay. Here I used the usual signal phrase so and so said. Even in this essay I still struggled with mixing up my signal phrases. This quote is also very long, I could have used a partial quote or paraphrase to help the paragraph flow better.

Image 2: This is an example from Essay 3. This is just one example of a paraphrase which I used more extensively compared to the other two essays. I found that using these other tools allowed my writing to flow better when reading it. They also helped me better explain my ideas and get my point through.