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.