After reading Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”, I realized my free drafts was very similar to what Lamott was saying. She said that the first drafts should be the drafts that one uses to just throw the words out on the paper, and then with the second draft, one can go back in and cut and add words into places than are lacking or have too much. I feel like my first draft is very similar to the free writes we do in class. I just want to keep my pencil moving and write down all the thoughts I had in my head. I felt like I did the same with my first draft because I had my ideas for my body paragraphs and then I found myself just writing until I reached a point where I had enough. But unlike Lamott, I like to look at my free draft as the start and the base of what I want to write. She compared her first draft writing to something terrible that people would not want to read, but I think the first draft is something to build up on. I do not think this short essay offended me at all because I know that any first draft is going to be a mess. I think seeing the first draft as a place to throw ideas down and then work off of that is a good way to look at the first draft because the ideas will not just come from your mind and be perfect. All drafts need a sufficient amount of work to turn into good writing.
Revision Plan Strategy
- My goal is to restructure my essay so the essay flows better and makes sense to the reader. I also need to be aware that I do not overwrite and I get right to the point.
- To achieve this goal, I talked with Professor Emerson, met with our writing fellow, Emmy, and did a peer review with two of my classmates. I will take their advice and put it towards my writing. Next, to restructure my essay, I will clump my sentences together into little paragraph of the same thought, print them, and cut them out. I will then physically move the pieces of paper around to find similar ideas and put them together, which will help make my essay makes more logical sense because it will have an order. After that is complete, I will word my sentences together and add transition words in between to make my essay flow better.
- My biggest challenge is going to be making sure my writing is clear and concise. I tend to continue to write to prove my point, even when my point has already been proven. I will need to step back and figure out what proves my point and what does not. Anything I find that strays from my thesis should be removed, which will make my writing clearer.
- If I find that my writing is not clear or does not prove the thesis and I am not able to solve this problem on my own, I will reach out to one of my peers, Emmy, the writing support at SASC, or Professor Emerson. My peers will be useful because they have seen my writing before and they can point out how I have improved from my last draft. They will be able to see what works in the new draft and what doesn’t and how it compares to the first draft I wrote. I think Emmy is also an excellent resource to use because she is very knowledgeable in writing and she has taken the English 110 course before, so she knows what the professors expect of the writing. She can let me know if my writing is improving in clarity or if I need to work on it more. I also noticed that SASC offers a tutor is writing support. I have not used this resource before, but I feel it would be a great idea to get a fresh set of eyes to read and critique my essay. Lastly, Professor Emerson is always a great resource to go to because she want to help her student succeed and she is the individual who is grading the essays, so she knows what she is looking for. Any advice given by Professor Emerson is one to be taken seriously and changed in the essay because she knows what makes writing improve.
