Reflective Letter
When looking over the comments and edits of my final paper, I knew there could still be more revising no matter how much I do not enjoy it. The first mistake I noticed was in the second line of the intro paragraph where it says, “Whether it’s a stop sign you follow, a sign that tells you what to do, or a story that persuades you to change your opinion, there are so many examples everyday in which you encounter.” I decided to change the example, “a sign that tells you what to do” to “ a person that influences your actions” because the first examples were too similar. By changing this, it gave a different example and made the introduction stronger when introducing the topic of persuasion. The next edit was very small and only a punctual error of including the period inside the quotations instead of after.
In the third paragraph, I was trying to explain how some people do not follow the sign and therefore sometimes it does not work for everyone. After reading it again I noticed that there was no enough analysis and description of why people follow the sign or if they do not, so I decided to add more. Between the first and second sentences I added, “Most people follow the rules because they do not want to get in trouble or get themselves into a bad situation”, in order for the reader to understand the reason behind the people who follow it. I also had to include why people do not follow it so I added, “Certain parts of the sign, such as the pictures and wording on it, makes it appealing to some more than others and is the main reason behind why some people choose to follow it and others do not.” I also decided to fix some of the wording to make it flow better and so the sentences could flow smoothly. Towards the end of the paragraph, there was a sentence that said, “In order to understand the sign, you need to know what is on it and what it looks like.” This statement was a good transition into the next paragraph and also did not fit within the paragraph it was in.
In the fourth paragraph, most of the details and discussion throughout it were good, except for the ending where it needed a bit more analysis. I ended up adding two more sentences to clean up the overall idea and conclude with what the reader needed to hear. “We have all grown up to realize that we need good reasoning, reliability and recognizable components in order for us to trust the person or thing that we encounter. Without having an identifiable object, color or word, this sign would not work as well as it has been.” Without adding this, the paragraph would have ended with “…trust it’s credibility”, and the reader would have questioned “what credibility?” So by adding this, it is clear that what is on the sign, and being able to recognize certain things as people makes it more credible and allows us to trust it.
After reading over the sixth paragraph, I realized I had already mentioned something earlier in the essay so I had to address that by including, “As I already mentioned…” There was also not enough analysis on the logic behind why people choose to ride their bike correctly. I addressed the logic of including symbols and colors that most people understand as a way to make them follow it, but I also needed to include other reasons why. From the comments Beth left, I noticed that I could incorporate how having a consequence for not following the sign can be a part of the logic. I included, “While the wording of symbols may appeal to logos, so does the logic behind knowing one might get in trouble for not following the sign. The creators of the sign noticed that if someone knows the consequences that may occur, then they are more likely to follow the sign than disobey it. For those who are not aware of the consequences, they may be much less likely to accept the sign’s statement and ignore it. The logic behind this sign seems to focus on the audience who will notice the simplicity of it and take into consideration the possible consequences of not following the rules.” This made it more clear to understand how the sign appeals to logos and therefore is another component to the sign’s persuasion.
As a writer, I have always been very repetitive or have come short of explaining things. Either way, I need to work on them so that my papers can become better overall. In the seventh paragraph, I was short on explaining exigence and kairos in depth and therefore it did not meet the needs one would need in understanding the terms. I decided to split exigence and kairos into their own paragraphs and developed them on their own so the reader could understand what the terms meant in relation to the sign. Most of these revisions were made in order to add more detail, analysis or depth into an explanation of a term or concept. I tend to struggle with expressing my intentions for certain things I do in papers and the reason behind ways I go about it but if I end up getting the point across with good analysis and reason then I am happy with it. Having to make reasons for edits is maybe one of my least favorite things ever because it feels like I am spending time on something that I already know and that people do not care about reading. Overall, I know that revisions make my papers stronger no matter how much time it takes.
As I look over the narrative inquiry paper, I see that it can also use a lot of revising and edits. I noticed most of my weaknesses in this essay seem to be my wording and structure overall. My plan to being the new development and revision stage was to start with the main comments from Beth and my peers and then decide on my own if they fit into what I am trying to do.
In the introduction paragraph, I found that it is very short with little to no organization of the sentences and barely any thesis in sight. In order to fix this I switch the second sentence with the third sentence and added another one to the middle of the intro to make it flow better. This is the sentence I added in the middle, “As most of us know, getting caught up in having fun can or focusing on other things take us away from important things that need to be said or done.” I included this in the intro because I needed to address the topic of “miscommunication” in relation to my situation, which is “the distraction of having too much fun and forgetting.” I shortened one of the sentences because it did not flow smoothly before. I changed it to, “For me, this happened on July 24th of 2018. It was quite possibly the best day of my life, yet the scariest for both my parents, my sister and all of my friends.”
In the third paragraph, the details were explained well but it needed to be cut into two paragraphs towards the end. After I separated them, I needed to look over the details of why I was distracted from calling my parents. I included that we no longer had service, but adding something more to it could make the argument stronger. I added the component of having fun and being excited to see something new as another detail. “ I have always been interested in seeing new things and exploring different areas all over the world, so when I get an opportunity to be a part of something like this, I get super excited. Most of my distractions came from my focus on living in the moment and being able to view something I might never see again.”
As I was gazing over the fourth paragraph, I noted Beth’s comments about adding more detail to the hiking portion of the story. I agreed and thought it would be beneficial in explaining how the hike was so long and to explain the reason of why I did not call them for a long period of time. Otherwise, it would seem like the timeline between the hike and calling them is short. I added things such as, “The hike itself was an uphill, 10 mile round trip through bushes, tall redwoods and rocky floors. We passed multiple waterfalls and clouds of bugs swarming our faces, as well as many other hikers on the trail.” I also decided to split off the paragraph to discuss more details about the end of the day after the hike to emphasize that my mind was on nothing but the hike.
The next revision was removing a pointless sentence, and then making the following sentence more clear. I said, “…not a good idea” and I never explained what the bad idea was. In order to fix this, I removed the sentence, added detail to the “bad idea” and revised the entire paragraph. Part of it was, “Even though I couldn’t help myself from the amount of fun I had, it was not a good idea to completely forget about my parents because of my “distractions”. Going on a 10 mile hike and coming across three brown bears and one black bear on our trail made me think about how I could have died, and they wouldn’t have known because I never told them I was going to be gone.”
In the seventh paragraph, one of Beth’s comments was to develop one of the reasons why I did not communicate with my parents, which was because I was mature enough to be on my own. While it could use more description, I feel that if I did add more to this, then I would be going off topic and it would not lead my paper in the right direction.
Overall, these edits and revisions made my paper stronger and as a writer, I learned a lot about what I need to do in my future essays. Being able to include detail and make the reader understand my point of view is going to be something I need to work on, but this was very helpful in teaching me that.
Skye Shaffer 