Part 1: First Draft Experience

After reading Lamott’s Shitty First Drafts, I’ve noticed that we both have a lot in common when it comes to writing first drafts of something. We sit there, looking in different directions for some bit of motivation to get us going. It seems like it takes days to get something down on a piece of paper, or on your laptop in some cases. I tend to get nervous about what I’m writing and what peers will think about it when they go to review my paper. “Wow, this girl doesn’t know how to write”. However, after a couple hours of outlining and organizing, the process seems to become easier as I’ve played out my quotes, intro and conclusion, and transition sentences. I am a bit shocked to see that professional writers/journalists struggle with this too, but at the same time I feel like all writing takes time and effort to just sit down and let the words flow.

Part 2: Revision Plan Strategy

My goals that I have set forth for revising my paper come together to make my paper stronger overall. First off, I plan on looking through my peers comments throughout my paper and seeing where they best understood what I was arguing and where they needed a clearer explanation. Once I’ve checked through their suggestions, I plan on double checking my quotes and seeing how they correlate to the topics I’m trying to make in each body paragraph. If necessary, I may need to go back through the three texts and collect more quotes to put into my paper that will strongly support my topics. This will also help to bring me up to the required word count of the paper. Lastly, I will look through my essay and see where I can place stronger words which will stick out to my audience.

Steps:

  1. Read through my peer review comments, see what worked best and what didn’t
  2. Add more to third body paragraph to better explain topic
  3. Go through previous assignments and see which quotes I believed were important to describing metaphors
  4. Add in text citations!
  5. Make sure my transitions flow clearly through the paper
  6. Once done, look through for grammatical errors and places where stronger words can be placed

My biggest challenge I think will be trying to add more information into my body paragraphs to bring me up to the word count. I am just short of the word count, however there still may be a struggle as to what should go where and what exactly should be added to the essay that makes the most sense to the argument. If this challenge seems too difficult to solve myself, I have a variety of resources I can use. I plan to talk to peers in and out of the class to get more perspectives on how to better my essay and what they think should be added. If they don’t seem to help, then I can email our writing fellow and get her opinion on where I can add more evidence and what I should be adding. If need be however, I can always contact my professor and ask for her guidance on this first paper.