Demonstrate the ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision).
To show my development, I thought I would share my first essay I wrote in English 110. I feel like it shows how I have developed from a high school style writer to a college style writer in just a few weeks. The outline of a classic high school essay was an introduction that included a summary about the three sources, a three part thesis statement, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion that restates the introduction. The body paragraphs generally have three topics each. Through this course, I have learned to stay away from the classic high school outline of an essay and focus more on developing my argument.
One may also find that I used global edits to change the order of my body paragraphs to suit my argument. The order of my body paragraphs in my free draft did not make sense with my topic. With Professor Emerson’s help, I was able to move my body paragraphs around to make my essay flow in a logical order.
I also found that I included more topics in my free draft than I did in my final draft. This example of a global edit helped me find that some of my body paragraphs were just fluff and they directly relate to my thesis. By eliminating the extra fluff in my essay, I was able to meet the word count and make my essay more clear.
I have also learned that local revisions are very helpful after the global revisions are finished. Once my body paragraphs are in a logical order and my essay flows very well, I am able to look at my sentence structure and change it to make my essay more clear.
One thing I never was told to do in high school was to add insight for changing the future in my conclusion. It makes the reader think and I think it really completes my essay now that I leave the reader with something to think about. I would consider this a global revision because it really changes the way my conclusion paragraph is set up.
