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).
Before this class, my revision process began during the drafting stage. I figured that if I did everything all at once that it would go by quicker and was most efficient. However, it took me so long to write just one paragraph up from freshly baked ideas to polished sentences, that when I moved on to the next paragraph I had to completely reverse back to thinking of new ideas. I didn’t realize how much my previous methods stunted my writing process until I read “Shitty First Drafts”, where I learned that I have to just write, and it doesn’t matter how shitty it sounds because I will go back to fix it later. It’s important to let a train of thoughts go rather than interrupting it to go back to what I already wrote. Now, my revision process consists of writing a full rough draft, reading it a few times, rearranging paragraphs and ideas, crafting connective sentences, fixing passive voice to active voice, and then grammar and punctuation.
The first step in my revision process for this paragraph was to read it over a couple times, along with the rest of my essay to make sure that I stayed consistent with my argument. I knew I would need to go pretty in depth with this paragraph, as it was in its very rough-early stages which was based on my initial reactions to the reading where I used simple sentence structures and not a lot of explanation. My main idea was there, but I still needed a lot of clarifying before I was done. I made sure to make my point more clear from the rough to the final by adding and clarifying my examples, expanding on ideas I didn’t touch on strongly, and bringing in ideas from my claims in other paragraphs of my essay for cohesiveness. Although there is an unanswered question in the final paragraph, I go further into why joy is so special in the next paragraph of my essay, saying how joy is found after a great deal of effort or pain, and that the intense emotions of it being over can spark joy.
