- Through peer editing, I am able to see writing as a process that requires revision. Peers make suggestions and I am able to take those suggestions and put them to use in order to revise the essay for clarity and organization. I use global revision to move around paragraphs to find a sequential order that makes it easier for the reader to follow my stance. Before moving them, ideas were jumbled and seemed to be thrown into the essay. After revising the essay, the essay has a flow. I never enjoyed reapproaching an essay I have written. After writing the essay, I turned it in and never looked at it again. Peer review has given me the chance to learn how to look back at my work and make it even better.
- When writing my essays, I usually rely on paraphrase. I feel that it integrates more smoothly into the piece and allows me to construct my sentences in my own way. I am not limited to finding a way to integrate a quote into a sentence. Sometimes the placement of a quote can be awkward and doesn’t fit. I am working on finding ways to pull quotes from a work and integrating them seamlessly into my essay. Most of my first drafts only include paraphrase and summary, but after looking at it again, adding quotes provides concrete facts that reinforce the reader’s confidence in what I am saying.
- I think I still need to work on active reading, critical reading and informal reading. When I first started reading and began to actively read, my strategies were to just highlight what seemed interesting as I went. I now realize that I have to actively engage myself as I read the piece, and write notes in the margin of how I could later use this, and help me brainstorm for a fresh idea. I think I can start improving by beginning to pay more attention to what I’m reading. I need to be able to understand the piece to make connections.
- When looking over my and other peers essays I try to focus on what makes them the most clear. When reading over a paper, I’ll first read it once over as I normally would. I then go back and focus on parts that were most fuzzy to me. If I can find a way to move them around to make the point clearer, I do. If not, I offer suggestions on how to reword the sentence or remove it completely. To further improve my critiquing I would try to provide more comments on what to fix. I usually only do the bare minimum on what could be fixed, but there are many other things I could try and comment on.
- When unsure on how to cite source, I’ll usually look up where to place something. For example, If I’m unsure on where to place the book’s name, I’d google “Where does a book name go in an MLA citation?” Order is just about the only thing I lack confidence in and to better myself with that I’m going to do research on where everything is place in a citation for further reference.
- I am pretty confident in my grammar and spelling. Sometimes I have problems deciding what punctuation to use. I think commas, semicolons, and colons are one of the main reasons for this. I always try to incorporate all three into my essay but never really need to. When I look over what people have edited on my paper, they never focus on grammar,punctuation or spelling so I believe that is a good sign that I don’t have any issues. I’d like to improve my punctuation skills to where I can use each accurately and in a way that makes the sentence flow.
