Reflection on Project 2

Now that Project 2 is complete, it is time to reflect on my revision process.. To do so, I will be answering the questions posed in the text.

Hammoud, Ahmad "A Beautiful Look" 03/18/11 via flickr. 

Attribution 2.0 Generic

1. What was specifically revised from one draft to another?

What I specifically focused on was addressing my audience by literally walking them through the steps I was taking. In my first draft, my essay was pretty much a rhetorical analysis. But when I shook off my high school habits of third person point of view only, I feel like I was able to connect with the reader a lot better. Like I almost made them real in my head to where I'm imagining talking to a student.


2. Globally how did you reconsider the thesis or organization?

I reconsidered my thesis pretty much the same way I reconsidered my whole essay: by connecting to my audience personally. I worked to make sure that I really linked myself to them so that I was sort of drawing them into the paper instead of just lecturing them. And adding this part into my thesis was important for my revision.


3. What led you to these changes?

I think what made me change my essay in this way was that I took into consideration my audience's needs and what I was really supposed to be doing with this essay. I knew who my audience was in the first place, but when we talked in class about being explicit I decided that it was better to be too direct then not direct enough and I went for it.


4. How do these changes affect your credibility as an author?

Well I think it both helps and hinders my credibility in a way. By being more buddy-buddy with the reader, they see me as above them (I mean I'm telling them what to do) but not by any means a super authoritative figure. But I think when considering that this is a student, a freshman no less, this would up my credibility in that they are more willing to trust me. I tried to make it so I wasn't so much bossing them around as guiding them through the process, and I think a scared freshman (like myself) would be more responsive to what I had to say as a result of this change.


5. How will these changes better address the audience or venue?

By taking into consideration the actual prompt, I directly change how I address the audience. I wanted to make it so it was clear what I was trying to do in my essay, and also by being more conversational I think I adhere to the reader's needs more. After all, what college student wants to be talked at about a tricky topic like this? I tried to make it sound more like I was talking WITH them about this topic.


6. Point to local changes: How did you reconsider sentence structure and style?

I changed my style with the rhetorical question in the second sentence. I have NEVER used rhetorical questions in an essay. Because I literally would have gotten curb stomped. But I changed up my style for this essay, and in doing so also started being less wordy. I was more concise about it because I was being more conversational, for example in my first sentence. I tried to make it shorter so my audience wouldn't be lost in the run-ons.


7. How will these changes assist your audience in understanding your purpose?

I think the change of style will help to make the reader understand that my purpose is not to lecture them on rhetorical usage, my goal is to engage them in the analysis. And I think that the rhetorical question I employed early on helps to get them thinking and draw them into my paper.


8. Did you have to reconsider the conventions of the genre while you were writing?

Oh boy. I'm not sure if this is exactly what the question is asking, but the way I'm taking the question heck yes I did. Starting off I first had to reanalyze me preconceived notions on the essay genre in that 1st person pronouns were alright. To me this had ALWAYS been a part of essays. But I really had to get used to the fact that that is not really the case. But at the same time, I still had to follow the skeleton of an essay of course, and make sure I wasn't being too informal about it. I found myself reconsidering the conventions of the essay genre pretty much all through the process of drafting and revision.


9. How does the process of reflection help you reconsider your identity as a writer?

I'm actually finding in these reflection posts that I'm a very self reflecty person. It also helps me to realize that really as a writer I am checking myself all through the process. Its almost like I have a little teacher in my head like standing over writing me's shoulder and correcting them along the way. I think that this is a pretty cool thing to know about myself, because I'm not just banging on the keyboard praying for coherent thought to come out. The reflection process just really helps me to realize that I adapt as I go. Like for example the first person pronouns, I was expecting to have a way harder time than I did including them. But once it was clear how useful they would be in this essay I made sure I included them. Its just cool to see that I am a very self-reflecting writer to me.


Reflection of my peers reflections:

For this reflection I looked at Jon and Lia's posts. In Lia's reflection I was able to see a lot of similarities to my Project 2 experience. We had different ideas on the reasons for what we did or didn't revise, but we both heavily revised our introductions and conclusions based on the class discussion and examples.

Jon on the other hand had a different problem than me. Where I was over-analyzing to the point where my essay was too much analysis, he found himself lacking analysis. This sort of made me value my own analysis because one thing I have no shortage of is thoughts to spew (*see my very first blog post for this class, ah memories). Although it can be hard to narrow down sometimes, at least I have it all out there to pick and choose from.

However one thing we all had in common was a lot of audience based revision. I think that as a class we had a hard time breaking free of the standard rhetorical analysis and explicitly saying our purpose. But during the revision stage and after the class discussions it seems like we were able to free ourselves a bit, use those scary (but way helpful) first person pronouns, and put together an effective Project 2. Or at least we feel like we did this.