Demonstrate 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).

Framing statement:

Revision is very different in high school and college. In high school, we focused on local revision. I was told that after writing a draft, I should take a few minutes looking for spelling or grammar mistakes or sentences that did not make sense. This is all we did for revision. In college, we focus on global revision and the revision process is the longest part of writing the essay. After writing the first draft, which is messy and unorganized, the revision process helped to extend my thoughts and made sure I had a balance of myself and sources. Then, I read the whole essay and thought about parts that I could add more details to, made sure that my explanations of quotes made sense, and that each sentence flowed into the next as best as I could. At the end of revising my essays, I went back and did the local revision. During local revision, I checked spelling, wording, and that what I said was specific. Changing words, like the word “This” to what I was actually saying helped to create more flow in my essays. Before college, I was always told to explain quotes by saying ‘This shows” to avoid being repetitive, but it makes the essay sound less clear. While local revision is important, global revision is more important to focus on.

Work sample 1:

Analysis: The green shows what I added during global revision from my first draft to my final draft of my third essay. Before college English class, during revision, I would only spend a few minutes reading and editing it and would only change a few words. While editing this paragraph, I found places to add full sentences, an example from my own life, and more details. The sentences that I added made the paragraph more clear and detailed. Towards the end of revision, I edited words to make the sentences make more sense. For example, I changed the word “keep” to “remember,” to make the sentences easier to read.

Work sample 2:

Analysis: Thesis workshop worked on local revision by making my thesis more clear. The orange highlighted part shows that I replaced “joy” with “it” because when I said joy twice in the same sentence, it sounded repetitive, making it unclear. The red highlighted part is where the thesis became more specific because instead of just saying that joy is good, I call it a tool that brings happiness. The green highlighted part changed the last few words into one word to make the thesis more concise and easier to understand. Overall, doing local revision during thesis workshop made my thesis more simple, clear, and specific by changing those few words