Rough Draft Reflection

Marius says, “If possible, read your rough draft just before you go to sleep. Many psychological tests have shown that our minds organize and create while we sleep if we pack them full before bedtime.” (paragraph 5) I had never heard of these studies before reading this article, but it definitely makes sense and I plan to give it a try on my next writing assignment. On the subject of writing rough drafts though, my previous teachers have almost all drilled it into my head that you must write at least two to three rough drafts. If you do not write at least one rough draft and then rewrite it as a final draft, but you only write one draft period, then in a sense, you are just turning in what should be the rough draft. Then you end up with a grade on the paper that is just that, rough.

I have been in AVID for 4 years now, currently in my fourth year, I first found out about AVID from my older brother and cousins. My first year in AVID was in seventh grade, they mostly helped us organize our binders to keep our school work from getting misplaced and helped us organize our notes Cornell notes style. When started AVID in high school it prepared me a lot more for college. Since freshman year AVID has helped me make sure I take all the necessary classes I need for college, like the A-G requirements. AVID makes sure we are involved with school clubs and/or sports to helping sign up for the ACT and SAT. Because of AVID I have learned to be more organized not only in school but also in my daily life. I have learned to keep a daily

I became part of the AVID program in eighth grade, I had no clue what the program was about; most of the time we worked on subjects that we needed help on, learned how to be organized, and practiced public speaking by having small socratic seminars. In a way, the tactics that my eighth grade AVID teacher taught me helped me become successful for my college preparation it helped improve my grades in the classes that I was struggling in and pushed me to take challenging courses. In my sophomore, junior, and senior year of high school, I spent my time reviewing different schools around the state and out-of-the state browsing through the financial aid assistance, majors and minors, location, and diversity to choose from. Junior year was the best

The future is as vast as the sky is on a dark and clear night, seemingly unknown and mysterious yet humans prepare for it. Knowing challenges await in the future, people have created programs to outreach to others, for myself, I took advantage of the program AVID.

One of my biggest challenges was accepting the fact that I had numerous habits that I developed in high school which were restricting my creativity. After reading Revising Attitudes by Brock Dethier, I now know that your first draft isn’t meant to be perfect. While writing drafts you need to let it go and not try to perfect anything. A rough draft is called rough for a reason. As a perfectionist, it was hard for me to comprehend the fact that I need to let go. I quickly found out that this would end up being one of my biggest weaknesses. I became frustrated with myself since I couldn’t figure out ways to revise my essay that had obvious problems. I was able to learn from my mistakes from the last assignment and avoid them. I now know to start narrowing your topic down when brainstorming your topic. Then you would continue to be more specific as you do your initial research. This helped me be crystal clear with what I wanted to write about and in the end helped me figure out which claims

Typically, when most people think about the writing process they think of terms such as a ‘thesis statement,’ developing an outline, body paragraphs, conclusion; it’s imperative to view writing this way. We have only been taught THIS way of writing almost directly after we learned how to spell words—you decide what to write about, usually specified in the thesis statement, then you write a series of paragraphs entailing how you came to this conclusion. Finally, you conclude your paper by restating exactly what it was you spent an entire essay writing about. And most people will go their entire lives believing that is the formula for an effective, well thought-out work of literature. But how often do we go back and read through our writing and completely resent how amateur and forced it sounds? This is usually a direct result of a lack of revision within a work. Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a change or a set of changes that corrects or improves something” and “a new version of something that has been corrected or changed,” Revision is not a common word we think of when writing—this raises a serious question: how should you revise? In response to this to this, research was conducted to find a general view as to the significance of revision within various individual’s writing processes. These results, along with research from several academic articles provide a clear description as to where revision could be

Have you ever given much thought about revising your paper? We correct the spelling, fix the grammatical errors, and give it one last read through then we hand it in. Revision is one of the most important pieces when writing an essay, but do we overlook it? I most certainly did until I read Barbra Tomlinson’s essay, “Tuning, Tying, and Training Texts: Metaphors for Revision”. Tomlinson opened my eyes and I see a whole new light when it comes to revising my papers.

This should be the same approach when editing a paper. After finishing editing a paper, always try to think about ways in which it can be improved even more. Think about this not only after writing a rough draft, but also in between writing papers. This will improve the writing process immensely and spark new ideas of how to

Another day, another shitty draft. Anne Lamott was right when she said that the first draft of a paper is bad, but it leads to a better second draft and even better third draft or final paper. Lammot, an experienced writer, and novelist tells us that most feel as if we are pulling teeth to finish our first draft and it isn’t always pretty. It can be painful and sometimes ugly, but it is essential in creating a paper that is worthwhile. Lamott says, “ Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled” (Lamott par. 2). As a high school English student, it is comforting to know that just because you are getting older and more experienced it does not mean writing

A “rough draft” is something someone writes with the express purpose of getting their ideas out on paper. Expectedly, more often than not, people will write multiple drafts before writing their final, in an effort to get to their best paper. I was, of course, introduced to the phenomenon that is the rough draft in middle school. Interestingly, whenever I attempted to write a rough draft, my thoughts would become muddled and slowly but surely, I was left with nothing to write. Hardly after being introduced to the rough draft than I jettisoned it; in fact, it is because of that dismissal that has prompted me to adopt a different method.

When looking back five weeks ago, I struggled with confidence in my writing. I had much trouble expressing my thoughts on paper. Through time, I feel that I am stronger in my writing abilities and my writing skills have improved greatly. So far, I have learned to be more confident and I no longer struggle with getting started. There have been many instances where I have thought long and hard about submitting a document fearing that it was not good enough. Now, I realize that preparation is the key to great writing. When writing, many times I would write one section of the paper and immediately would start to revise before completely finishing. I soon realized that this method is a very long process and it’s

This semester I learned a lot about writing in English 151. It has been a roller coaster ride with these essays for me this semester. I learned step by step how to write a good essay and how to have your readers be engaged in what you’re trying to tell them. Each essay I did has taught me something valuable I can take to the next level of English. I feel as if as the semester went by I did not take my writing that seriously and that reflected in my grades I received in each essay. It made me a better student and writer and it will reflect next semester. In this essay, I will reflect on what I learned throughout this semester that you should apply in your writing when you begin English 151.

I enjoy research and obtaining new knowledge of whatever I am studying. The hardest part for me is not taking that break between drafts. Getting to the destination and seeing something that makes all that hard work worth while is great but sometimes it is hard to push yourself to get to that point. Sometimes it might even just be that I feel lost and don’t know where to go next with my thoughts and ideas as far as putting them into words on my paper.

Also I have learned that by doing the draft step by step as in introduction, body, and conclusion also helped me get through the process of writing the draft. Not doing all the draft at once really helped because if did not feel the pressure of having to finish it all together. First, I would do the introduction and then maybe thirty or sixty minutes later, I would do the body, then after another short brake, I would do the conclusion. This has helped a lot with my draft because between those breaks I would think of something else to include in the paper. As well as giving my self time to think this way of drafting gave me an opportunity to check me paper more thoroughly because I would check each section individually and that way I found mistakes I would have missed before.

One of the most problematic difficulties I faced and am still facing is self-revision. When writing a paper, it is extremely important to revise your essay multiple times before submitting the final version. Every revision helps to build a more polished essay. I feel that my paper fails to progress enough from the rough draft to the final. To fix this, I need to give myself longer breaks between revising. Becoming skilled at revising my own papers will allow me to develop into a more competent, successful