Peer review

My major fear regarding my essay was losing the reader’s attentions, but according to my editor that was not a problem. She did, however, find some area’s which confused her that had not occurred to me, since I had been working on it for so long. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to restructure the problem areas of the paper. I felt that the work I put in resulted in an essay which flowed much smoother and had a more logical progression to its conclusion.
In general, it was helpful to have an outsider’s perspective. So much so that I after I made the corrections mentioned by my peer editor, I took my paper to another friend for additional input. I had her read the essay and give me feedback, just as my original editor had, and since she didn’t mention any of the concerns of my peer I asked her directly about those sections. She felt they were very clear and didn’t cause any confusion. I assume this to mean that I did a good job correcting my paper and the issues are no longer present. I suppose the real test comes when I hand it in.

Writing my essay

At first I was wondering how I was going to be able to make my essay different from my research proposal while maintaining the same topic. However, this proved to be easy and they turned out very different. In fact some of the additional research I did for the essay has caused me to revisit my proposal and alter it a bit based on the new information. The first half of my essay is loosely modeled after the more narrative style essays we read, and the second half is mostly analytical for the purpose of providing information to support my original statements. I struggled to make the essay flow smoothly, since I had a rather drastic stylistic change. The method that I found to be most successful was to continually refer back to the main point of the introduction, hence reminding my readers of the thesis and maintaining their interest by leading them to the conclusion rather than presenting it to them.

Shitty First Drafts

I don't think the shitty first draft process will work for me. By nature I am not a very organized writer so for years I have been training myself to create detailed outlines before I start writing to keep me on track and ensure I prove a point through my writing. This time, without an outline to go off, I found myself lost and rambling. Some people said that they felt more productive because they didn't have the block of trying to make their sentences perfect the first time. I find that I don't encounter this block because when I write the outline I don't use complete sentences, but by the time I go to write a real draft all I have to do is formulate a good sentence that expresses the bulleted point in my outline. Granted their are points in my shitty first draft that I want to use, but I feel that I have to sift though piles of junk to find just a few good points, which need to be further uncovered from the confusing sentence in which they are embedded. In my next piece of writing I might incorporate the shitty first draft process into my outline by writing an introductory and concluding paragraph, but leaving the rest as bullets.

What will make my essay good?

I was reading Ben's blog and like him I have been suffering from a nasty cold. I seem to have been sick almost continuously since I came to this school - maybe its the water. Anyway, I think the cold finally took hold of me when I was writing my "shitty first draft" because it was defiantly shitty. I have decided to treat it as more of a free write than a draft. I don't want to scrap the thing entirely because the order of my ideas is somewhat logical so for organizational purposes it will be helpful. However, almost all of the sentences need to be reworked for grammatical and aesthetic purposes. Additionally, I started to repeat myself a lot in the third paragraph so I am planning to combine the few original ideas embedded in it with the second paragraph.
Essentially I am using my shitty draft as a very vague outline. I feel that because I was so sick and the idea of speeding though a draft of an essay was new to me the process was not very productive for me. I have already begun rewriting in an entirely new word document and simply using the old one to keep me on track. However, I am very happy with the thesis and conclusion that came out of my shitty first draft. Now that I have a clear starting and ending point I feel my essay will be more logical. I have also done some additional research for this essay, which has caused me to revisit my research proposal. I think the two relate to each other very well, now that I have rewritten them both. I have a lot of work to do, but I feel I have a plan to produce a good "dental" essay.

A Moment of Silence

Rustle rustle, brush, squeak, earch, creak, cough…sigh. These are the sounds of silence. A room full of people just sitting. If you were to enter an auditorium sized building to find members of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds, sitting in a circle together completely quiet, would it make you uncomfortable? Why? Because society has taught us that it is socially unacceptable to remain quiet when surrounded by your peers. You are considered an outcast, an undesirable entity, if you do not converse with those around you; weather they are your closest friends, neighbors, family, or complete strangers, you must put yourself and your opinions out there for them to judge with little to no forethought. If society puts so much value on what individuals say, why don’t we give them more time to formulate their thoughts before we judge them? Would this not give us a truer estimate of their values and opinions?

Essays?

I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading the essays to find that they were more personal and less analytical in nature than I had expected. As I'm sure is the case with most of us in this class, I had a lot of experience reading and critiquing examples of many types of essays, both scholarly and non through previous English classes. I found these essays generally longer in length than what I had become accustomed to and hence, they seemed to smear across the boarder of essay and short story. "The Stunt Pilot" appeared to merge components of both genres of writing the most to me because of the clear story plot. However, there was also a clear point to the essay; to cause people to appreciate the art form of piloting through demonstrating it verbally. As a result of the attempted demonstration the essay was very descriptive, hence building anticipation to the take off and producing a very emotionally stimulating piece of work. In contrast I found myself struggling to grasp the point of "Ali in Havana". The essay was very descriptive in nature, but rather than describing an event, as was done in "The Stunt Pilot", people, their personalities, quirks, and physical attributes, were the primary focus of descriptive details. This style of writing remanded me of "Connie and the Sandman Ladies". I haven't been able to determine how similar my essay will be in nature to these examples because of the elemental difference in topics, but they have at least gotten me thinking in essay mode.

Meeting

I found the conference most helpful with regards to my procedure section. I had been struggling to find a way to clearly express mathematical calculations in words so you suggested inserting a table and some sample calculation. None of the research proposals I had looked at had contained sample data so the idea had not occurred to me, but I believe that the addition helps to clarify that section of the paper and add validity to the proposal as a whole.

Rsearch Proposal

I feel much better about my research proposal than I did at the beginning of the week. I found the conference incredibly helpful and reassuring. My main concern had been that I was not formatting the proposal properly and/or completely fulfilling the requirements of the assignment. I am anxious to get more feedback once you have read it through thoroughly. Looking ahead to the next assignment am contemplating altering my topic again slightly, not sure if this is an option. I'm going to evaluate the essays we go over in class to hopefully get a better idea of what I am striving for and then reassess weather I want t alter the focus within my community.

Overview of Week 7

I found myself feeling a little lost this week. I wanted clear guidelines regarding expectations of the research proposal last weekend, but felt like I didn't have them until after the "brainstorm" in class at which point my paper was already written. Hence, I felt like I was blindly writing with no regard for what the class requirements were since I was not aware of them. Luckily, the paper I had written was applicable and I feel that it should meet the class expectations. Hopefully, I can get all of my questions answered during our 15 minute conference. The reading from rewriting made me feel more confidant about my paper as a piece of writing, but not necessarily as an assignment for the class.

Rewriting Ch 5 Questions

Coming to Terms:
I feel like this part of re-writing is fairly easy for me because I have a very hard time writing unless I know exactly where my essay is going, hence I tend to organize my thoughts in outline form and have the entire paper planned out before I begin to write. For this research proposal I started by providing some brief background and then immediately posing my question; all subsequent paragraphs provide information which directly supports my solution to the question. I wrote an outline before I began on the actual paper, during which time I struggled with posing an answerable question and formation the proof and conclusion in a logical and convincing manner. I feel like I mostly accomplished this step of rewriting in the outline stage before I truly began the paper.

Forwarding:
I am guilty of the “irony of rewriting” in that I tend “ to become so preoccupied with fixing what isn’t going right in the text” that I “neglect to build on what is.” I like this idea focusing on and improving the positive and I am defiantly trying to use it while I edit my paper, but because the concept is so new to me I think I’m going to have to spend a lot of time practicing before the additions I make will cease to seem forced.

Countering:
I thought about including a counter argument in my original outline, but shyed away from the idea because I was afraid it might seem more convincing than my argument. I feel like my topic is very open to debate, since it is rather ideological in origin. I am investigating counter arguments, but I’m still not sure how best to include one.

Taking an Approach:
I defiantly used this part of the chapter in editing my paper. I always have trouble creating a conclusion that doesn’t simply involve repeating myself. I feel that by using my concluding paragraph to expound upon my research and explain the potential implications it may have in the future, I maintain the reader’s attention by adding new information without differing from the main topic.