My writing process for this essay was to focus on the body paragraphs first and then go back to the introduction and conclusion. To really craft a thesis that related to my body paragraphs I wrote the body paragraphs first to get the gist of what I wanted to say. I then used the common themes of my points from the body paragraphs to construct my thesis. Like last essay, I feel that I managed my time well, especially by following all the checkpoints with the drafts along the way. This time I had better focus on what to work on throughout my essay though. After listening to the feedback given on my first paper, I knew what I did that was good and put more energy into trying to improve upon my weaker spots. After meeting with Anjana, I really focused on the things she pointed out and her suggestions. I went back to my essay and rewrote a portion of paragraphs to make my points better align and be clearer to the reader. I tried to add more of my voice and analysis to my paper after the quotes I used. I tried to explain why I thought the quotes were connected and what it meant to me. Going forward, I am going to write out my analysis of the quotes I want to use before I try to construct the entire paragraph. To make sure I am getting everything I want to say out there, I will write my analysis first and then worry about the format of the paragraph and making it sound smooth. Writing in the humanities is a hard transition for me. I am a STEM major and have spent many years learning that we do not put our own opinions into our papers, it is solely about the objective. It is hard to write about what I am thinking and how I feel, it feels wrong to do so. I feel that my effort put into both of these papers has been the same. I took the time over these past weeks to follow the process and I hope that is reflected in my grade. I think I put even more effort into my essay this time because I went back and revised it many times after talking to different people. I also want to do well in this course and want to progress as the semester progresses. If I am not getting better as time passes, what am I actually doing here. When writing this essay, I learned that it does not matter how well constructed and formatted your essay is, it is about the substance and how deep you can dig into ideas.
When I first began this piece of writing, my first step was to create an itinerary of two captivating points to expand on with my Barclay’s formula paragraphs. Next, I chose to implement two quotes for each paragraph utilizing two various sources, such as what you asked for. I did this to allow for efficiency with my excerpts, as they would best correlate to such captivating points. I then designed my thesis to introduce such points, encompassing both “information gluttony and techno-cognitive nomadism.” I feel as these points infinitely increase the efficacy of my paper, as I am trying to compare both articles to ultimately unveil what I have to say about the topic at hand. I strongly believe these two factors are a strong drive in the technological presence today.
Furthermore, I began to elaborate on such points and stressed the “I say” in relation to the “They say” of the paper. I feel as if I did this strongly, putting a heavy emphasis on my own experiences in relation to both quotes at hand, as well as the thesis. To explain in detail with concrete specifics, I brought both a personal experience with my parents handling technology in addition to another personal experience with my nephew and his education. I ultimately branched off from the later personal experience with a very important takeaway—that further research needs to be conducted to truly understand the long-term effects of technological reliance.
Although the overarching points of my writing style remained relatively static, the framing and format of this article varied from my “bread-and-butter” format. I am very used to using shorter paragraphs targeted at one specific point in an analysis, and then using bridging points to transition to another important point. I also found myself force-feeding the writer information in my article, whereas I’m typically used to posing questions for the reader through a prompt—sparking intellectual contemplation for the individual reading. I do understand, however, that this practice does not follow the most effective method of informative writing which is why I deviated from such method.
Ultimately, I believe that the structure of my writing has improved quite a bit in relation to my previous project. There is a much more concise and practical flow of thoughts, where in my previous article such thoughts deviated occasionally, bouncing back to a general analysis of the articles utilized. Progressing further, I plan on upholding such structures while writing a clear and easy-to-read, mentally stimulating paper.
I felt better about the whole process of this essay than the first one. I really appreciated doing a Barclay’s paragraph as an assignment before technically starting the essay because I had used the same authors as I ended up using in my essay and so I just inserted the Barclay’s paragraph and edited it so that it fit better. I felt like I saved myself the 400 words since I had already done it. This time around, I feel like my writing went smoother: I didn’t feel like stopping and starting a few times was as choppy as the last paper. My ideas this time kept coming as I wrote and the time between writing did not harm my writing like I felt it somewhat did last time. Since the deadlines were identical to the first essay, I felt like a pro when it came to getting this one done. I appreciate the same set up for each paper because I get more comfortable the more I do it. Peer review was very helpful again. I like reading other people’s essays because sometimes I see things that they did that I really like, and I am able to incorporate it into my essay. I think the peer review is especially helpful when there is something that multiple people in my group pointed out and I know that it is definitely something to look at because sometimes when just one person says it, it feels like it could be their personal opinion and I may just feel a different way about it. I do not procrastinate too much when it comes to school work, and it was especially helpful not to with the multiple draft due dates to keep the process going. I still would like to get more words on the page in a single sitting so that I can avoid having a good idea or being on a good and losing it once I stop writing. I did revise more this essay than the last one and I feel like that was helpful because every time I looked at the paper, I changed at least a few small things if not larger, more important things. I constantly changed the wording in sentences once I read over them a few times. Saying them aloud helps as well. I was stuck at one point and read my quote introduction aloud to my roommate to see if it made sense and I could tell the first time that it didn’t because I paused a lot while speaking it aloud. I think that for the last paper I just need to keep doing what I’ve been doing, just do a little more at a time.
My first step in writing project 2 was to just get all of my ideas out. I like to do this by writing an outline. Doing that, I can give myself a solid idea on how my essay will look before writing it. It allows me to work on my thesis, topic sentences, and gather quotes. From there I start writing my body paragraphs. This time I made a concerted effort to insert more “I say” into the essay as it was something that was emphasized that I need to work on from my peer review group. Writing the barclays format was one of the trickier parts of the essay for me. However, after meeting with Anjana I was able to better understand ways I could implement it into my writing. Writing using the barclays format allowed me to compare Sherry Turkle and Kevin Kelley’s differing views on the matter; I think it allowed my writing to flow better. My next step was to write an introduction. I made an effort to better introduce the two writers I was centering my essay around. I wanted to make sure that I was introducing them in a way where it is easy to understand for the reader. Then I made sure that my introduction included my own personal beliefs instead of just stating their beliefs. Next, I spent some time working on my thesis and improving the wording of it. I needed to make sure that my thesis set the essay up well, while also drawing the reader in. Then I went to the end to write my conclusion. Taking into consideration Anjana’s comments from project 1, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just restating everything I had aforementioned. I wanted to provide both of the author’s opinions, my opinion, and then talk about why any of it matters. What do these ideas mean going forward? After this I went back and revisited the comments that Professor Miller had on project 1. I paused the video after each comment to make sure that I had improved on what he was saying in this piece of writing. Following this I returned to the MLA format of writing that had been provided to us. I wanted to make sure that I had the correct format of page numbering, titling, and citing work. After that I read through the whole paper twice to make sure that I had no grammatical mistakes, and that the writing actually made sense. Overall I think this project was successful in that I believe I made improvements on my last one. Following the submission I feel more confident, and pleased in the work that I had done. Part of this success might be due to close reading of the two essays. Reading both pieces of work carefully allowed for me to write a better essay, with more relatable quotes.
Throughout this project I approached it in a different way than before. First I started by going back and rereading all the articles and separated the arguments and views form each author. After I distinguished between all four authors to the two I was going to use I put in my own opinion to theirs. I found this project much easier to meet the deadlines. This project was easier because the paragraphs were much more detailed and when working with two or more sources for me personally is easier. Also, the Barclays formula was a helpful guide for how my body paragraphs should be set up. Meeting with our writing fellow was much more helpful than I initially thought. When meeting with Anjana we went over my introduction paragraph primarily with narrowing down my thesis and that helped when going through my revisions. During the revision stage of this project process, I found myself focused more on the structure and how things were worded first. I then added more I say and personal connections to the quotes used. Explain how I resonate with the author’s views. Going forward after this project I think I will be more proactive when I work on my sections of writing. For example, I will start a little bit of the essay and spread it over multiple days therefore I am not working on a draft two nights or the night before it needs to be completed. I also am going to move my location to where I do my writing so my roommates can not distract me or talk to me while I focus on the task at hand. Also going forward I am going to make better notes of how my annotations are when receiving a new piece of writing that could be useful in the process later on. I believe my efforts for this project were much better than my efforts in project one. During this project I found myself looking more into the reading and comparing how both the authors I used for my essay agreed and disagreed. Along with that I also compared my views of both authors on how I agreed or disagreed with them as well. My effort was also better because when working with multiple sources ideas came quicker to me and I was able to jot them down and go back to fine-tune the idea later in the process.
My process for writing these essays definitely changed from the first paper to the second paper, I was more focused on the foundations and layout of the paper and less on what sources I was using. I wanted to get Barclay’s formula paragraphs done properly, so I focused on each step of writing them. I found that before I focused on my sources and myself a little too much to where I would get lost in the structure of the writing. Now I had focused on structure over all else, and I feel that my writing process was a lot smoother. I wanted the reading of my paper to be smooth and allow the reader to be taken on a ride. I was highly focused on the structure and format of my paper, I had a plan from the beginning on how I wanted my paper to unfold, and what to leave the reader with once the paper was done. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and that hasn’t changed, I enjoyed being challenged by this class so far. Learning different writing styles and having new ways to write different paragraphs was very helpful for me as a writer. Barclay’s formula was something I think I struggled with but got the hang of really quickly. Working on something new helped me to focus more on getting what I needed to do, so I didn’t procrastinate as I maybe did before. I feel like I did a good job with the structure of my paper since that is what I mainly focused on, but I feel that my evidence and my opinions were strong. I worked hard to think outside of the box for this paper because I didn’t want to write something boring, but I wanted something unique as well. I feel that for my paper how it reads is smooth, there aren’t any abrupt changes which makes it easier on the reader. I feel that next time I would like a second peer review to get more opinions on my writing to strengthen it more. Even though I did see the writing fellow, I feel that more opinions would’ve been helpful. I didn’t procrastinate as much as I had for the first essay, and I feel that the writing process went a lot smoother. For this paper, I focused more on the writing layout, whereas last essay I focused on what I was using as a source and the evidence I was providing for my point. While I did work on that in this paper, I also wanted to have a clear and smoothly written paper that flowed to give the reader a better understanding of my topic.
Jack Thurmond
Professor Jesse Miller
ENG 110
March 29, 2024
Journal #19
I feel that I took some stuff from my last writing process into this one however, there were some parts of my process that I decided to change. For example, when writing my drafts I tried to plan more instead of just writing and reaching the limit. I found that this made it easier for me to put my drafts together and I had less work for myself to do in between drafts. This simplified my writing process. I again felt like my peer review was helpful and both times I tried to integrate what they told me into my final draft. This time I met with Anjana which I felt helped me. I was able to rework my introduction and thesis which I felt that it reshaped my essay. It made my essay sound stronger and have much more of a real focus which made it easier for me to finish the essay. I also spent more time reading through my final drafts which I felt like had lots of benefits. First I was able to catch small mistakes that I could have missed that really hurt my writing by making it sound weak and careless. Second I was able to find repetition in my writing that I could easily change and this also helped me to be more confident in my writing. I was also able to rework some of my sentences that were maybe unnecessary or needed to be combined with another sentence or two. This again helped my writing to sound stronger and since I read it a couple of times I was able to find what I felt sounded the best. One thing I really tried to improve on from my last essay was adding more of the “I say”. I got that feedback both from Professor Miller and my peer review group on the last essay. In this essay, I worked to add more of my opinions or experiences that I have had that have shaped my thinking in a certain way. I tried to add one instance of this in each paragraph because I felt that it was really missing in my last essay. I hope this will give more of my point of view and give credibility to my opinion and writing. This was one of my biggest focuses in this essay so I am hopeful that is evident in reading my writing. Going forward I would consider reading through my essay sooner and more frequently. Ideally, I would be able to catch my mistakes sooner which would allow me to make smaller changes on my final draft. I think this would lead me to be more confident in my work. It would also leave less for me to worry about later in the writing process and I could just focus on other issues in that time.
Journal 19:
The writing process over the course of my life has altered in so many ways. For starters, with this newest essay I’ve written, I began by rereading both articles twice fully, rather than just the parts I assumed I would want to include. Doing this allowed me to not only connect deeper to the articles but it gave me a more solid understanding of what both authors wanted to convey, allowing me to add my voice more smoothly. Writing essays, as silly as it may sound, has genuinely improved my ability to exist as a successful student. Spacing out my drafts, engaging the reading material in a more meaningful way, meeting strict deadlines, and just putting in honest work has improved not only my writing, but my studying habits and work process in other classes as well. Moving forward I definitely need to work outside my dorm more; my room is essentially Pandora’s box of distractions, just waiting for my focus to trail off onto anything but my homework. Curbing this obstacle includes optimizing study rooms, working outside when it’s nice, and simply stepping away from technology (that’s not being used to complete the work). I thought that my first draft of this paper was even an improvement of my final draft of my first essay, as the feedback I had received from multiple sources was practiced. Both essays had effort put into them, that I can say without uncertainty; however, understanding the grading and getting more into the “groove” as one might say has definitely improved the quality of my writing. The first paper I had a lot of personal crises happening and it was hard to put my all into it, but I think that going through them and incorporating the advice given from Professor Miller, Anjana, and my fellow classmates has sparked a new motivation that I didn’t really have before. I don’t just want to do well, I want to do well and feel good about it. I want to be proud of myself and my work. While I still have a ways to go, I honestly feel that this project was a step in the right direction.
The process of writing these papers is straightforward and for me it is much more beneficial. The check points and the small due dates within this big project is what keeps me on track, each class we should have a new part of our project due, or a small assignment relating to our project. This helps me stay on track with my writing and constantly adding and working on it, the process allows me to not put it off until the end so I am in much better shape when it comes time to submit the paper. When I was in high school and middle school, we did not have these writing workshops, where we had two or three people reading our essays, and certainly did not have a writing coach like Anjana. Other people reading my work is the most helpful part, it allows different ideas and viewpoints to help me write my essay instead of ust me reading it over and over. The peer review day is hard because I don’t really like others reading my work , but the more they critique and brainstorm ideas with you the better my writing gets. I have learned a few things from this new writing process, starting with how paragraphs and introductions our structures, where you want a thesis, and the set up using quotes and reasoning, which I did not know before. One big step I learned in writing is actually introducing the author and going a bit of a background on who the author is, what they have written and. Before I would just name the author and what they have written, but I have learned to give the reader a bit of their view to set up what you will write about and that has helped me as well as learning how to invite the reader in. I did not have much success in this writing, but I did do some things better such as my thesis, I worked on my thesis with Anjana and I did well so I am a bit proud of that, in how I set up my writing and made it short and straight to the point. I am not sure what I would do differently, I think maybe have another person read it over towards the end like a family member or take it to SASC to touch up some things, but I think the peer review day is very helpful in getting to that solid final draft.
In reflection, this writing process went smoother than previous attempts. The constructive criticism I got on my first essay proved that there were levels to my writing style that I needed to work on. In essay 2, I tried to learn from my faults and use the I voice more. After points I made on quotations, I would try to weigh in on if I agree, disagree, or if it was complicated to find a common ground. This added depth in my paper and gave the reader a lot more insight to what I thought about what Anderson and Turkle were talking about. This use of the “they say I say” in my paper allowed me to dig deeper into ideas and play with my thoughts. I also spread the work of my essay out longer, this allowed for more intelligent responses, rather than concise thoughts. I also used SASC more during my writing process. This allowed for expert viewpoints into my writing process before handing it into my professor. The kind folks in SASC worked with my ideas and helped me expand on ideas that I usually wouldn’t be able to further alone. This helped me not only reach the word count for this paper, but also weigh in more critically and extract every detail I could. This helped my paper become what it is today, and I am truly thankful for those who helped me. I am also proud of the work I produced, and believe it is my best work submitted in English 110 so far.
With this project I think I took a more well-mannered approach compared to writing I’ve done in the past. As this process for this project revolved around incremental steps, I was able to make progress on the paper overtime rather than in one sitting. This led me to work on a portion at a time to then build to get to the final product overtime. This method allowed me to not be as overwhelmed with having to complete a whole essay within a given time period compared to what it was in high school. Rather we composed multiple drafts which required certain word counts which this breakdown was helpful for me. I also appreciated the deadline as it was set up in a way that gave us time to reach a completed essay without stressing about the due date. What I’ve learned from this writing process is that it can take time to create a piece of high quality and therefore must use resources and follow directions to meet this goal. so by following the schedule of writing many drafts and getting peer review feedback are crucial steps that you dedicate your time towards in order to build the most well constructed piece. A success that I would like to point out was my use of Barclay’s formula. I recognized that this was an important aspect of this project as the purpose was to compare authors and spent time formatting my paragraphs accordingly. I think moving forward I the only thing I should focus on is to maybe spend more time reviewing the final paper at least one more time, as I typically will read through it twice but it would be more beneficial to read through it at least one more time so I can go into class on submission day being more confident and maybe checking the rubric more often to make sure I have met all the points and didn’t miss any crucial components. However, in comparison to our first project I think I spent more time revising this time around and I also met with Anjana which gave me a leg up as well. Overall, with this project I made us of the resources I had available to further enhance my paper and feel like I have produced some strong essays so far.
11 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 19”
My writing process for this essay was to focus on the body paragraphs first and then go back to the introduction and conclusion. To really craft a thesis that related to my body paragraphs I wrote the body paragraphs first to get the gist of what I wanted to say. I then used the common themes of my points from the body paragraphs to construct my thesis. Like last essay, I feel that I managed my time well, especially by following all the checkpoints with the drafts along the way. This time I had better focus on what to work on throughout my essay though. After listening to the feedback given on my first paper, I knew what I did that was good and put more energy into trying to improve upon my weaker spots. After meeting with Anjana, I really focused on the things she pointed out and her suggestions. I went back to my essay and rewrote a portion of paragraphs to make my points better align and be clearer to the reader. I tried to add more of my voice and analysis to my paper after the quotes I used. I tried to explain why I thought the quotes were connected and what it meant to me. Going forward, I am going to write out my analysis of the quotes I want to use before I try to construct the entire paragraph. To make sure I am getting everything I want to say out there, I will write my analysis first and then worry about the format of the paragraph and making it sound smooth. Writing in the humanities is a hard transition for me. I am a STEM major and have spent many years learning that we do not put our own opinions into our papers, it is solely about the objective. It is hard to write about what I am thinking and how I feel, it feels wrong to do so. I feel that my effort put into both of these papers has been the same. I took the time over these past weeks to follow the process and I hope that is reflected in my grade. I think I put even more effort into my essay this time because I went back and revised it many times after talking to different people. I also want to do well in this course and want to progress as the semester progresses. If I am not getting better as time passes, what am I actually doing here. When writing this essay, I learned that it does not matter how well constructed and formatted your essay is, it is about the substance and how deep you can dig into ideas.
When I first began this piece of writing, my first step was to create an itinerary of two captivating points to expand on with my Barclay’s formula paragraphs. Next, I chose to implement two quotes for each paragraph utilizing two various sources, such as what you asked for. I did this to allow for efficiency with my excerpts, as they would best correlate to such captivating points. I then designed my thesis to introduce such points, encompassing both “information gluttony and techno-cognitive nomadism.” I feel as these points infinitely increase the efficacy of my paper, as I am trying to compare both articles to ultimately unveil what I have to say about the topic at hand. I strongly believe these two factors are a strong drive in the technological presence today.
Furthermore, I began to elaborate on such points and stressed the “I say” in relation to the “They say” of the paper. I feel as if I did this strongly, putting a heavy emphasis on my own experiences in relation to both quotes at hand, as well as the thesis. To explain in detail with concrete specifics, I brought both a personal experience with my parents handling technology in addition to another personal experience with my nephew and his education. I ultimately branched off from the later personal experience with a very important takeaway—that further research needs to be conducted to truly understand the long-term effects of technological reliance.
Although the overarching points of my writing style remained relatively static, the framing and format of this article varied from my “bread-and-butter” format. I am very used to using shorter paragraphs targeted at one specific point in an analysis, and then using bridging points to transition to another important point. I also found myself force-feeding the writer information in my article, whereas I’m typically used to posing questions for the reader through a prompt—sparking intellectual contemplation for the individual reading. I do understand, however, that this practice does not follow the most effective method of informative writing which is why I deviated from such method.
Ultimately, I believe that the structure of my writing has improved quite a bit in relation to my previous project. There is a much more concise and practical flow of thoughts, where in my previous article such thoughts deviated occasionally, bouncing back to a general analysis of the articles utilized. Progressing further, I plan on upholding such structures while writing a clear and easy-to-read, mentally stimulating paper.
I felt better about the whole process of this essay than the first one. I really appreciated doing a Barclay’s paragraph as an assignment before technically starting the essay because I had used the same authors as I ended up using in my essay and so I just inserted the Barclay’s paragraph and edited it so that it fit better. I felt like I saved myself the 400 words since I had already done it. This time around, I feel like my writing went smoother: I didn’t feel like stopping and starting a few times was as choppy as the last paper. My ideas this time kept coming as I wrote and the time between writing did not harm my writing like I felt it somewhat did last time. Since the deadlines were identical to the first essay, I felt like a pro when it came to getting this one done. I appreciate the same set up for each paper because I get more comfortable the more I do it. Peer review was very helpful again. I like reading other people’s essays because sometimes I see things that they did that I really like, and I am able to incorporate it into my essay. I think the peer review is especially helpful when there is something that multiple people in my group pointed out and I know that it is definitely something to look at because sometimes when just one person says it, it feels like it could be their personal opinion and I may just feel a different way about it. I do not procrastinate too much when it comes to school work, and it was especially helpful not to with the multiple draft due dates to keep the process going. I still would like to get more words on the page in a single sitting so that I can avoid having a good idea or being on a good and losing it once I stop writing. I did revise more this essay than the last one and I feel like that was helpful because every time I looked at the paper, I changed at least a few small things if not larger, more important things. I constantly changed the wording in sentences once I read over them a few times. Saying them aloud helps as well. I was stuck at one point and read my quote introduction aloud to my roommate to see if it made sense and I could tell the first time that it didn’t because I paused a lot while speaking it aloud. I think that for the last paper I just need to keep doing what I’ve been doing, just do a little more at a time.
My first step in writing project 2 was to just get all of my ideas out. I like to do this by writing an outline. Doing that, I can give myself a solid idea on how my essay will look before writing it. It allows me to work on my thesis, topic sentences, and gather quotes. From there I start writing my body paragraphs. This time I made a concerted effort to insert more “I say” into the essay as it was something that was emphasized that I need to work on from my peer review group. Writing the barclays format was one of the trickier parts of the essay for me. However, after meeting with Anjana I was able to better understand ways I could implement it into my writing. Writing using the barclays format allowed me to compare Sherry Turkle and Kevin Kelley’s differing views on the matter; I think it allowed my writing to flow better. My next step was to write an introduction. I made an effort to better introduce the two writers I was centering my essay around. I wanted to make sure that I was introducing them in a way where it is easy to understand for the reader. Then I made sure that my introduction included my own personal beliefs instead of just stating their beliefs. Next, I spent some time working on my thesis and improving the wording of it. I needed to make sure that my thesis set the essay up well, while also drawing the reader in. Then I went to the end to write my conclusion. Taking into consideration Anjana’s comments from project 1, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just restating everything I had aforementioned. I wanted to provide both of the author’s opinions, my opinion, and then talk about why any of it matters. What do these ideas mean going forward? After this I went back and revisited the comments that Professor Miller had on project 1. I paused the video after each comment to make sure that I had improved on what he was saying in this piece of writing. Following this I returned to the MLA format of writing that had been provided to us. I wanted to make sure that I had the correct format of page numbering, titling, and citing work. After that I read through the whole paper twice to make sure that I had no grammatical mistakes, and that the writing actually made sense. Overall I think this project was successful in that I believe I made improvements on my last one. Following the submission I feel more confident, and pleased in the work that I had done. Part of this success might be due to close reading of the two essays. Reading both pieces of work carefully allowed for me to write a better essay, with more relatable quotes.
Throughout this project I approached it in a different way than before. First I started by going back and rereading all the articles and separated the arguments and views form each author. After I distinguished between all four authors to the two I was going to use I put in my own opinion to theirs. I found this project much easier to meet the deadlines. This project was easier because the paragraphs were much more detailed and when working with two or more sources for me personally is easier. Also, the Barclays formula was a helpful guide for how my body paragraphs should be set up. Meeting with our writing fellow was much more helpful than I initially thought. When meeting with Anjana we went over my introduction paragraph primarily with narrowing down my thesis and that helped when going through my revisions. During the revision stage of this project process, I found myself focused more on the structure and how things were worded first. I then added more I say and personal connections to the quotes used. Explain how I resonate with the author’s views. Going forward after this project I think I will be more proactive when I work on my sections of writing. For example, I will start a little bit of the essay and spread it over multiple days therefore I am not working on a draft two nights or the night before it needs to be completed. I also am going to move my location to where I do my writing so my roommates can not distract me or talk to me while I focus on the task at hand. Also going forward I am going to make better notes of how my annotations are when receiving a new piece of writing that could be useful in the process later on. I believe my efforts for this project were much better than my efforts in project one. During this project I found myself looking more into the reading and comparing how both the authors I used for my essay agreed and disagreed. Along with that I also compared my views of both authors on how I agreed or disagreed with them as well. My effort was also better because when working with multiple sources ideas came quicker to me and I was able to jot them down and go back to fine-tune the idea later in the process.
My process for writing these essays definitely changed from the first paper to the second paper, I was more focused on the foundations and layout of the paper and less on what sources I was using. I wanted to get Barclay’s formula paragraphs done properly, so I focused on each step of writing them. I found that before I focused on my sources and myself a little too much to where I would get lost in the structure of the writing. Now I had focused on structure over all else, and I feel that my writing process was a lot smoother. I wanted the reading of my paper to be smooth and allow the reader to be taken on a ride. I was highly focused on the structure and format of my paper, I had a plan from the beginning on how I wanted my paper to unfold, and what to leave the reader with once the paper was done. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and that hasn’t changed, I enjoyed being challenged by this class so far. Learning different writing styles and having new ways to write different paragraphs was very helpful for me as a writer. Barclay’s formula was something I think I struggled with but got the hang of really quickly. Working on something new helped me to focus more on getting what I needed to do, so I didn’t procrastinate as I maybe did before. I feel like I did a good job with the structure of my paper since that is what I mainly focused on, but I feel that my evidence and my opinions were strong. I worked hard to think outside of the box for this paper because I didn’t want to write something boring, but I wanted something unique as well. I feel that for my paper how it reads is smooth, there aren’t any abrupt changes which makes it easier on the reader. I feel that next time I would like a second peer review to get more opinions on my writing to strengthen it more. Even though I did see the writing fellow, I feel that more opinions would’ve been helpful. I didn’t procrastinate as much as I had for the first essay, and I feel that the writing process went a lot smoother. For this paper, I focused more on the writing layout, whereas last essay I focused on what I was using as a source and the evidence I was providing for my point. While I did work on that in this paper, I also wanted to have a clear and smoothly written paper that flowed to give the reader a better understanding of my topic.
Jack Thurmond
Professor Jesse Miller
ENG 110
March 29, 2024
Journal #19
I feel that I took some stuff from my last writing process into this one however, there were some parts of my process that I decided to change. For example, when writing my drafts I tried to plan more instead of just writing and reaching the limit. I found that this made it easier for me to put my drafts together and I had less work for myself to do in between drafts. This simplified my writing process. I again felt like my peer review was helpful and both times I tried to integrate what they told me into my final draft. This time I met with Anjana which I felt helped me. I was able to rework my introduction and thesis which I felt that it reshaped my essay. It made my essay sound stronger and have much more of a real focus which made it easier for me to finish the essay. I also spent more time reading through my final drafts which I felt like had lots of benefits. First I was able to catch small mistakes that I could have missed that really hurt my writing by making it sound weak and careless. Second I was able to find repetition in my writing that I could easily change and this also helped me to be more confident in my writing. I was also able to rework some of my sentences that were maybe unnecessary or needed to be combined with another sentence or two. This again helped my writing to sound stronger and since I read it a couple of times I was able to find what I felt sounded the best. One thing I really tried to improve on from my last essay was adding more of the “I say”. I got that feedback both from Professor Miller and my peer review group on the last essay. In this essay, I worked to add more of my opinions or experiences that I have had that have shaped my thinking in a certain way. I tried to add one instance of this in each paragraph because I felt that it was really missing in my last essay. I hope this will give more of my point of view and give credibility to my opinion and writing. This was one of my biggest focuses in this essay so I am hopeful that is evident in reading my writing. Going forward I would consider reading through my essay sooner and more frequently. Ideally, I would be able to catch my mistakes sooner which would allow me to make smaller changes on my final draft. I think this would lead me to be more confident in my work. It would also leave less for me to worry about later in the writing process and I could just focus on other issues in that time.
Journal 19:
The writing process over the course of my life has altered in so many ways. For starters, with this newest essay I’ve written, I began by rereading both articles twice fully, rather than just the parts I assumed I would want to include. Doing this allowed me to not only connect deeper to the articles but it gave me a more solid understanding of what both authors wanted to convey, allowing me to add my voice more smoothly. Writing essays, as silly as it may sound, has genuinely improved my ability to exist as a successful student. Spacing out my drafts, engaging the reading material in a more meaningful way, meeting strict deadlines, and just putting in honest work has improved not only my writing, but my studying habits and work process in other classes as well. Moving forward I definitely need to work outside my dorm more; my room is essentially Pandora’s box of distractions, just waiting for my focus to trail off onto anything but my homework. Curbing this obstacle includes optimizing study rooms, working outside when it’s nice, and simply stepping away from technology (that’s not being used to complete the work). I thought that my first draft of this paper was even an improvement of my final draft of my first essay, as the feedback I had received from multiple sources was practiced. Both essays had effort put into them, that I can say without uncertainty; however, understanding the grading and getting more into the “groove” as one might say has definitely improved the quality of my writing. The first paper I had a lot of personal crises happening and it was hard to put my all into it, but I think that going through them and incorporating the advice given from Professor Miller, Anjana, and my fellow classmates has sparked a new motivation that I didn’t really have before. I don’t just want to do well, I want to do well and feel good about it. I want to be proud of myself and my work. While I still have a ways to go, I honestly feel that this project was a step in the right direction.
Beckett Shanahan
Reflection
The process of writing these papers is straightforward and for me it is much more beneficial. The check points and the small due dates within this big project is what keeps me on track, each class we should have a new part of our project due, or a small assignment relating to our project. This helps me stay on track with my writing and constantly adding and working on it, the process allows me to not put it off until the end so I am in much better shape when it comes time to submit the paper. When I was in high school and middle school, we did not have these writing workshops, where we had two or three people reading our essays, and certainly did not have a writing coach like Anjana. Other people reading my work is the most helpful part, it allows different ideas and viewpoints to help me write my essay instead of ust me reading it over and over. The peer review day is hard because I don’t really like others reading my work , but the more they critique and brainstorm ideas with you the better my writing gets. I have learned a few things from this new writing process, starting with how paragraphs and introductions our structures, where you want a thesis, and the set up using quotes and reasoning, which I did not know before. One big step I learned in writing is actually introducing the author and going a bit of a background on who the author is, what they have written and. Before I would just name the author and what they have written, but I have learned to give the reader a bit of their view to set up what you will write about and that has helped me as well as learning how to invite the reader in. I did not have much success in this writing, but I did do some things better such as my thesis, I worked on my thesis with Anjana and I did well so I am a bit proud of that, in how I set up my writing and made it short and straight to the point. I am not sure what I would do differently, I think maybe have another person read it over towards the end like a family member or take it to SASC to touch up some things, but I think the peer review day is very helpful in getting to that solid final draft.
In reflection, this writing process went smoother than previous attempts. The constructive criticism I got on my first essay proved that there were levels to my writing style that I needed to work on. In essay 2, I tried to learn from my faults and use the I voice more. After points I made on quotations, I would try to weigh in on if I agree, disagree, or if it was complicated to find a common ground. This added depth in my paper and gave the reader a lot more insight to what I thought about what Anderson and Turkle were talking about. This use of the “they say I say” in my paper allowed me to dig deeper into ideas and play with my thoughts. I also spread the work of my essay out longer, this allowed for more intelligent responses, rather than concise thoughts. I also used SASC more during my writing process. This allowed for expert viewpoints into my writing process before handing it into my professor. The kind folks in SASC worked with my ideas and helped me expand on ideas that I usually wouldn’t be able to further alone. This helped me not only reach the word count for this paper, but also weigh in more critically and extract every detail I could. This helped my paper become what it is today, and I am truly thankful for those who helped me. I am also proud of the work I produced, and believe it is my best work submitted in English 110 so far.
With this project I think I took a more well-mannered approach compared to writing I’ve done in the past. As this process for this project revolved around incremental steps, I was able to make progress on the paper overtime rather than in one sitting. This led me to work on a portion at a time to then build to get to the final product overtime. This method allowed me to not be as overwhelmed with having to complete a whole essay within a given time period compared to what it was in high school. Rather we composed multiple drafts which required certain word counts which this breakdown was helpful for me. I also appreciated the deadline as it was set up in a way that gave us time to reach a completed essay without stressing about the due date. What I’ve learned from this writing process is that it can take time to create a piece of high quality and therefore must use resources and follow directions to meet this goal. so by following the schedule of writing many drafts and getting peer review feedback are crucial steps that you dedicate your time towards in order to build the most well constructed piece. A success that I would like to point out was my use of Barclay’s formula. I recognized that this was an important aspect of this project as the purpose was to compare authors and spent time formatting my paragraphs accordingly. I think moving forward I the only thing I should focus on is to maybe spend more time reviewing the final paper at least one more time, as I typically will read through it twice but it would be more beneficial to read through it at least one more time so I can go into class on submission day being more confident and maybe checking the rubric more often to make sure I have met all the points and didn’t miss any crucial components. However, in comparison to our first project I think I spent more time revising this time around and I also met with Anjana which gave me a leg up as well. Overall, with this project I made us of the resources I had available to further enhance my paper and feel like I have produced some strong essays so far.