Blog #7

Blog #7
Write a reflection on the third draft of Assignment #1. Use at least two terms
we have learned in class.

Your reflection should answer this question:
1. What do you think is better about this draft when compared to the others?
Why? (300 words)

I think my third draft of assignment #1 is considerably better than the second, mainly because I implemented Paul Muhlhauser's suggestions for improvement. In my experience, taking the feedback given to you by any given class's professor and using the changes they suggest leads to a higher grade. Not only does it acknowledge their situated ethos, but it also shows a willingness to follow their vision for the assignment, thereby striving for improvement.

Of course this answer a total non-sequitur because it doesn't address the qualitative changes that have been made to the paper. So a more on-topic response would be that I changed the thesis to a statement that I had originally made in the final paragraph of the paper. I've found that when writing my conclusions, I tend to write more concise thesis statements than I do when starting my papers. This might be because by that point I've already worked through everything I want to say and I can provide a more concise summary.

The other thing I did was combine a paragraph listing the various TRACE elements with the paragraph relating to the key. While it had originally been my intention to quickly address those elements to satisfy the requirements of the paper, I found that they made my 'key' argument stronger (Besides, Paul Muhlhauser recommended that I do this ;-) What that effectively did was answer the question, so what? to the relevance of that paragraph.

So in short, I feel that the third draft is really an improvement because of minor adjustments to the organization of the paper. I didn't perform a massive overhaul to the original, nor do I feel that it was broken to the point where it needed that sprt pf treatment. I do feel that the paper is stronger now than it was originally, and I mainly have Paul Muhlhauser's rhetorical expertise to thank for that.