Before this final project I had never truly revised one of my papers. Before turning in my papers I always looked over them to make sure my grammar and spelling was accurate, my thesis made sense, and I included enough support in my paper, but I had never really revised a paper more than that. This paper was a challenge for me, because I didn’t know where to begin. After reading over the assignment multiple times, I became more comfortable with the idea of revision. I chose to revise and expand upon my second composition on intertextuality, because the conclusion of my paper sparked my attention. I wrote about how we are the author of our lives, and when looking back upon what we had studied throughout this semester I felt as if that correlated to almost all of the novels we read and discussed in class. In addition, I believe it is an interesting topic and there is a lot to learn from it.
Revising my paper took a lot of time and effort. First, I created a new thesis. From there, I used a few paragraphs from my second paper and altered them to fit my thesis. I also added new ideas and changed the wording of those paragraphs. Next, I analyzed my fourth composition on hypertext and used a few ideas from that paper to support my new thesis. In order to do this I had to add, delete, and alter my thoughts in order for them to correlate to my thesis.
I believe that I have grown as a writer throughout this term. At the beginning of the term I created a to-do list that included improving transition sentences, creating stronger conclusions, and embedding quotations. I believe that I have improved drastically in reference to these three things. I have learned how to create transition sentences that allow my papers to flow more smoothly. In addition, I believe my conclusions have improved, because they are not simply a repetition of my introduction; rather, they are a new thought that ties everything together. Finally, throughout this term I have learned how to embed quotes into my text so that my ideas flow. Although I believe my writing has improved throughout the semester, I believe my writing can still improve drastically. I believe that I still need to work on creating stronger theses. I would also like to work on implementing a higher vocabulary into my writing. I believe that this will add a higher level of sophistication to my argument. Finally, I would like to use more metaphors in my writing. Overall, I believe this semester was extremely beneficial to my writing. I learned a lot, and more importantly, I learned what I still need to work on.
