Learning outcome 1: Revision
When it comes to college academic writing the revision process is much different than high school. In high school, I mostly just glanced over my papers and would correct surface level errors. As Nancy Sommers says, I saw writing as “a rewording activity” (Sommers). What I did not realize then is that the revision process is not just making sure that your commas and punctuation are in the right spot. Revision is much more than that. When I got to college I realized that revision can completely change your paper. You could have a C- grade paper and turn it into an A paper by revising properly. When revising my first-week writing essay I made very little changes like I would in high school. After many peer review session and revision exercises, I began to see the process of revising as reshaping the essay as a whole so that it fits your argument. Sommers writes about this process when she says “ Details are added, dropped, substituted, or reordered according to their sense of what the essay needs for emphasis and proportion” (Sommers). I believe this directly embodies the qualities of the revision process. Each essay is like a baby. You have to feed the essay what it needs and make sure that it is well put together so that in the end it “grows up” into a flowing argument that sticks to your main arguments. Revision is the time where you can make sure that you have all these things. My favorite revision tactic is to read my essay backwards one sentence at a time out loud to make sure that I fix any surface level grammar errors. After I have done this and I feel comfortable I read it from the top to make sure that my ideas match my argument and that I have a balance of “they say’’ and “I say”. This is what I did on my big data project and It completely transformed my essay. Once I feel that my essay is worthy I submit it knowing I put forth my best effort.
