Saturday, February 4, 2017

Andruw Wittels 2/4

               Revising papers is something that is as necessary as drinking water every day. Without revision, our work is illiterate and has no meaning. Imagine if we wrote down everything that came to our heads for a psychology paper, but then immediately turned it in for a grade without even reading over it. Sounds terrible, right? Proofreading is one of the biggest parts of writing a paper, because it allows us to correct our mistakes and make our point that much more effective/persuasive.

              Anne Lamott brings up a point in her article "Shitty First Drafts." Writing a paper is a daunting task, especially if it's a long one. You want to create this product that has sophisticated words and a deep meaning, but you don't know how to start. Well as Lamott brings up, we aren't built to create greatness on the first try, well there are some who do and that's weird. She suggests writing a first draft, and just writing down everything that comes into your head about the topic. In her writing she humorously says "If one of the characters wants to say "Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?" you let her." For her writing, that's not exactly what she may want in the end, but it might bring up a solid point for her second draft. Writing multiple drafts is the key to creating this amazing product of a paper you want.

             Praxis brings up qualities of writing an effective paper. For example, one of the points is to fill in gaps in your writing. People aren't born with your experiences and your memories, so you need to clarify your points. The book also brings up the point of keeping it simple. Sophisticated language isn't going to make your point come across that much stronger, so they suggest to keep your writing simple enough to make your point and for people to understand. A final point this chapter brings up is about peer reviewing. Reviewing others papers and have others review your paper is key to creating an astounding final paper. Having another viewpoint on your essays is extremely necessary, because you can be your worst critic.

           Overall, this section taught us how to write and review papers. With our first major writing assignment coming up, this reading was extremely necessary and gave some useful tips for writing our proposal and future parts of this project.

           

1 comment:

  1. I like how you being this post by relating it to something that we do in our everyday lives, this really helps to drive home your point about how important editing and revising is. The story of the psychology paper is something that I can relate to, often I know that it could be easier to turn in my first draft but then I am reminded how ridiculous this is and how my grade will suffer on the report because of that. I like how in your wording on the importance of proofreading you both give a definition and drive your home your point of how crucial it is. The part when you speak about those who create greatness on their first try seems to take away some of the flow of the paragraph that it is a part of. The second paragraph gives us advice on how to write a better paper using the method of free writing, the quote that you have managed to fit into this paragraph is an eloquent fit. I like how the third paragraph not only uses the information that was presented in the second paragraph, but also gives the writer more activity to participate in to make their writing better. This was a very well written blog post that drew both off the reading that we prescribed for class, and off a little invention that you put into the first paragraph. I think this will be successful in reaching your audience.

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