Significant Writing (Big Data) Project
Before I entered English 110, I was not comfortable with altering my essay in between drafts. I would write a first draft and because it took long enough and had the required information, I did not make major changes between the two drafts. I more often than not always “fell in love with my first draft” because it was something I was proud of completing and did not think needed to be altered (Prof. Gennaco). I would still make minor revisions but there were little to no global revisions being done between the two drafts. The Big Data Project depicts all of my improvements throughout the course; there were major changes from my first to final draft. I learned to take my peer review comments about my global issues in the paper and address them, deciding whether or not I wanted to agree with them. I have grown to have no problem making global changes if I think they are needed for the paper. For this specific project, I received comments from my peer reviewers about my main argument and after my conference with Professor Gennaco, knew that it had to be altered. The beginning of the argument stayed the same but I had to work on focusing it more on what I specifically wanted to address, in this case public health. Consequently, my claims were altered as well as I had to make sure they fully supported my main argument. One of the significant changes was taking out my first naysayer argument due to a misinterpretation of the quote. I had built my entire counterargument based off of that quote and so taking it out caused me to reconsider what I could use as my naysayer argument and how I would then refute it with sufficient evidence. I ended up keeping the counterargument the same but added a new naysayer. I have also always had trouble developing text-to-text connections within my paragraphs but I think I did an exceptional job of expressing that in this project, more so than my previous essays at least. Developing these connections also made my main argument much stronger. Along with my peer review comments about text-to-text connections and my instincts of where I think they belong, I have gotten much better at locating where a text-to-text connection could be included. For this project, there was definitely one source, the database source by Vayena et. al that I mentioned throughout the essay. This also shows my development as not only did I provide text-to-text connections but I also added this source to my final draft because I felt that it was more supportive and easier to comprehend. In addition to my global changes, I also made a few local changes in terms of my diction and syntax. I think my development closely ties in with motivation. I am more motivated than I was before to produce something that truly reflects my skills.
