Learning Outcomes One
In my second major writing assignment, I feel I best showed my ability to use global and local revision to develop my writing. I did this in many specific pieces of my drafts. This project was my best effort at editing my work and I developed this from working on my first major writing project. I was able to take feedback from my peers and professor to achieve this. Local revisions are naturally easier for me as I can normally see them when I read through my writing and they are a pretty easy fix. For example, in the first draft of my essay, I began it with “Everyone tends to have their own options on modern technology, some say This is too much or that technology is ruining society. Others are on the opposing side and just want whatever new technology it is.” After reading this back to myself I found some issues with this. First I felt like I turned a one-sentence point into three sentences. It also came off as somewhat listy and not intriguing to me. If I was the reader I would not be interested in this essay after that start. I decided to make a somewhat simple change by starting my essay with “ There are many different views on modern technology, some may say that technology has taken over and is ruining society.” With this start to my essay, I was able to get my point across and do so in a quicker fashion. This sentence has a way better flow to it and introduces my essay better. The sentence as a whole fits my essay and sets me up to state my point better. In this same project, I also made a global revision. After my first three drafts, I had a meeting with our class writing assistant to work on my introduction paragraph. In this meeting, I brought up my issues with my thesis. I felt that it was too broad and did not correlate with my real argument. My original thesis was “ They both share a fear of technology consuming us and negatively changing our society.” I was using very broad language and not specifically proving anything. I knew changing my thesis was a big change but I felt it was necessary for my essay to prove something. I ended up changing my thesis to “ Both authors agree and use their texts to prove that overconsumption and the overuse of technology is a real problem in our society.” This new thesis is far more specific and aligned with what I was already trying to prove in the text. It was also way easier for the reader to understand my points. It also came across as a much more developed thesis and one I was happy with. In this project, I was able to use both global and local revisions to make my final project stronger.
