Thloggin Away

Thloggin Away

  The previous week of Writing 2 only consisted of one meeting instead of the usual two, but I still took away a lot of good content and ideas in my writing journey. Class was focused on second order thinking in the form of peer review and editing. While I procrastinated on finishing my WP1 a little more than I would have liked, I was still able to put together a writing piece to be proud of, which was validated by the comments and reviews from my peers. A central topic of conversation involved the idea of a working, arguable thesis statement, which I believe to be a core component of my essay. The concept of a working thesis greatly influenced my writing style for this piece, as I continually went back and made adjustments to the introductory portion as I went along. As my writing progressed, I gained increasing clarity about the fundamental purpose of my paper and used this knowledge to evolve my thesis statement over time. While I have always revisited my main ideas and thesis statements in my writing career, never before had I considered the prospect of starting an essay with a basic thesis and continually refining it as I went along. This will surely prove to be a valuable skill that I will keep in mind when putting together any piece of writing, as it simplifies the process of first order thinking and removes the pressure of creating a perfect introduction at the start of the process. While I believe that there is great value in starting off strong with a solid framework in mind for a writing piece, that doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be reviewed and refined.

  In addition to thesis-related concepts, I also learned a good bit about peer review from the reading and in-class practice. Learning how to temper criticisms and really express my thoughts on a fellow writer's work proved challenging, but will definitely come in handy for the duration of this course and my academic career. I came to realize that the key to this type of analysis is to simply take the time to really analyze a student's work and take the context of the entire paper into account when giving feedback. In order to give quality advice on how to improve a paper, higher and lower writing skills must be given careful consideration and treated as separate concepts which could be emphasized in constructive criticism. By analyzing the WP1's of my classmates, I was better able to understand the purpose of the essay and logistics of putting together my own WP1 into a cohesive writing piece. Looking forward to going back and making some key changes as suggested by the peer reviews of my friends!