Exercise 4.m

When writing an essay, I always have to be in a quiet place where I can focus.  I usually like to have both my computer and a pad of paper to write on.  On the pad, I scribble the main ideas and make a rough outline to follow along. I do this so I do not forget the points I want to make while writing the actual essay.  Once I begin to write, I try to just go with it and not worry about finding the right words or making grammatical errors.  I just want to get my thoughts down on paper before I forget what I wanted to say.  After I have my rough first draft, I usually revise it myself and fix the obvious mistakes I may have made while writing the paper quickly.  I then get an outside source to look at my paper, whether it be a teacher or peer.  This helps to point out things in my paper I may have missed or never considered.  In the past, peer review has not been very helpful for me because I have found that my peers are not willing to make any drastic changes to what I have written.  They will usually only point out the obvious punctuation or grammatical error.  I think this is often because we are scared that the change we suggest will not help out the writer and may even hurt their paper.  

Workshopping Drafts

I believe a workshopping draft should be a well written draft that is probably already a second draft.  In the first draft, the writer should be able to freely write down their thoughts and ideas in an organized manner.  Then, the second draft is for reading over the writing and making sure it makes sense and there are not careless grammatical errors.  The workshopping draft should be a well written product the writer is confident sharing with other readers.  Then, the other readers are able to give constructive criticism or catch mistakes the writer may have overlooked to make the paper even better. The writer should be aware of who he or she is addressing as an audience and write the paper accordingly.  For example, if the writer was teaching first graders the importance of playground safety, he would probably write his paper much differently than if he was addressing a college newspaper on political affairs.   

The mistake the writer of "Essay R" made was that the draft we read in workshopping was what should have been his first draft.  He should have taken the time to read over the paper and correct punctuation and grammar errors that can just make the writer look lazy for not correcting themselves.  He also sounded like he was writing to young children when he should have realized his audience was of a more advanced age. 

Grading "Essay R"

After reading "Essay R" comparing professional wrestling today to back in the 80s, I would have to give the essay a B-.  While the overall idea of the paper was fairly creative and the points discussed were pretty strong, the execution of writing the paper and the grammar used were fairly poor.  For example, the very first sentence of the paper is a question, but is not punctuated correctly with a question mark.  Also, there are random fragments of sentences throughout the paper.  For example, line 17 is not a complete sentence but rather a fragmented idea.  Also, random typos throughout the paper, like "thing" when the word needed was "think" (line 44) or "use" when the word needed was "used" (47) show that the writer did not take much time to read over his or her essay and spell check it before turning it in.  This makes what could have been a better essay look somewhat sloppy. Also, at the end of the paper, instead of using the pronoun "them" so many times, the writer should have identified who "them" was to make it less confusing to the reader.  If the writer did another draft on the paper, I am sure the paper would be significantly better.  

Response to, "Clinton's not the one for America"

I agree with what the writer of this article, Bryan West, was saying about McVey's argument against Hillary Clinton in his paper.  He believes that McVey does not make a strong argument and is not successful in persuading the reader of his opinion opposing Hillary.  He says this is mainly because the argument of politics is such a personal one and many times people are not willing to change their opinions.  I would definitely agree with this statement because in the recent election, I experienced many arguments about the potential candidates with friends who did not share my views.  Even after listening to one another, rarely did we change our minds about the issue. More often, we would just get offended over the topic at hand.  Politics is a very dicy issue and often one where individual's opinions are set in stone and hard to change.