Learning Outcome 1:

The first learning outcome, “The ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision)” is something that I have improved on an exceptional amount. When I first focused on this learning outcome, I recognized that my revision process was not as good as it could be. I talked about how during my first essay, all I did was reorder my paragraphs but did not work with my ideas or anything else which left my essay choppy, confusing, and all over the place. I also recognized that my ideas were vague and needed more evidence to back them up and make my position stronger and clearer. However, now that we are at the end of the course, I believe I have improved greatly in these areas.

In Nancy Sommer’s “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” she discusses how when students approach the revision process, they normally focus on rewording what they have already said rather than changing and working with the actual ideas behind the words. I found this to be relevant to how I first approached the revision process in the beginning of the English 110 course. When we wrote our first essay and did our first peer review/edit session, I remember that I did not really listen to the ideas that my peers were giving me about how to change my essay to make it stronger because I was stuck on my own ideas and did not want to change what I had already written. However, as we continued working with the revision process and as I met more with my professor, I was able to open up to the idea that what I originally write sometimes is not the best it can be and that is okay to work with my ideas and change them to make my paper better. I think that my “philosophy of writing” has changed since entering the English 110 class; before I would say it was pretty similar to what Sommer’s said about rewording the same ideas, however, now I think my philosophy of writing would be that your ideas and words are not made of stone and that they can be changed later down the road to create an overall stronger piece of writing.

For my Significant Writing Project, I chose to use my last essay that I wrote in the English 110 course titled, “How the Internet Connects Us”. In this essay, you can see how my revision process worked from the first draft to the second draft. I was able to change and reorganize my ideas in a way that let the essay flow and connect from all angles. I was not as successful in doing this in my previous papers. In the first draft of this essay, my ideas and thoughts were all over the place and did not really connect with each other. As I worked with the ideas and changed them to focus on a specific thesis, how the internet connects us online and offline, I was able to connect all my ideas together and make my paper much stronger.

Learning Outcome 2:

In English 110, we focused a lot on how to incorporate other authors’ work into our own writing. We did this by using multiple sources for each essay we wrote, and using quotations from their work as evidence in our writing. You can see how I selected, integrated, and explained a quote in my chosen significant writing project here:

“One reason it may be so easy to reach out on the internet rather than in real life is due to the anonymity of it. Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, a professor, and her two students, Amie S. Green and Marci E. J. Gleason, at New York University wrote the essay, “Relationship Formation on the Internet: What’s the Big Attraction?”, which discusses different aspects of online relationships. In the essay they state, “There are qualities of internet communication and interaction, such as its greater anonymity, that are known to produce greater intimacy and closeness” (McKenna 9). In other words, with the ability to talk to someone who does not know one’s identity, one feels more comfortable sharing personal details of their lives, which ultimately creates these functioning online relationships.”

In this excerpt from my writing, I selected the quote based on how it related to what my claim of the paragraph which was, “Online relationships have a way of creating a closeness with people that one has never even met.” I then integrated the quote by discussing anonamynity of the internet. After using the quote, I was able to explain it and lead it back to what my original claim was, as well as connect it to my thesis.

Learning Outcomes 5 and 6:

In the beginning of my English 110 course, I struggled a little with being able to properly use MLA format with in-text citations. Over the next few essays I was able to figure out how to properly use in-text citations and by my final paper, my chosen significant writing project, I did it correctly throughout the essay. You can see how I properly use MLA for in-text citations in this part of my writing: “People are also able to communicate about these memes from the internet in real life, and Wasik explains this by saying, “What the internet has done to change culture—to create a new, viral culture—is to archive trillions of our communications, to make them linkable, trackable, searchable, quantifiable, so they can serve as a ready grist for yet more conversation” (Wasik 480).”

In my “How the Internet Connects Us” essay, you can also see how I used local revisions to fix my typical errors. One way I did this was by rewording my sentences so that they made more sense. You can see this in the beginning of my fourth paragraph when I say, “Another way people create connections through the use of the internet is by easily being able to discover people with similar interests” which was originally, “The internet allows people to come together and create all kinds of new things and lets people with similar interests find each other to connect through that similar interest.” By rewording this sentence, I strengthened my claim and made it more clear and direct.

Learning Outcome 4: