Editorial Report 15b

This is it, my last blog post as a college freshman. I can't believe this is really happening. I made it to the end of freshman year intact and that in itself still amazes me. If just one year can cahnge me so much, I'm kind of excited to see what sophomore year has in store. Kubacki out.

• The content changed the most when I went through and re-edited my first body paragraph. Now, everything flows more smoothly and the sentences are a lot less choppy, plus I changed the tone to fit more with an essay, rather than a blog post. I also took out all the contractions to better follow the genre conventions of a standard college essay

• The form didn't change that much when I re-edited my first body paragraph. I added double-spacing, changed the font from 13.5 to 12, and also changed the font style to Times New Roman to align with the common formatting of essays (MLA formatting)

• Here's the selection from the rough cut

• Here's the selection from the re-edited rough cut

Editorial Report 15a

Wow I just feel so nostalgic tonight. I think it has to do with the official end of classes and the fact that I've started to take down my room (so sad still). Actually it's kind of funny, but the one thing that hasn't changed at all since coming to college is my music taste. I'm still going strong with Bowling for Soup, Paramore, all of the pop punk bands that were popular back in middle school. Some things just never change.

• The content changed the most when I went through and re-edited my introduction paragraph. Now, everything flows more smoothly and the sentences are a lot less choppy and I amped it up with the word choice. I also took out all the contractions to better follow the genre conventions of a standard college essay.

• The form changed only slightly when I re-edited it. I added double-spacing, changed the font from 13.5 to 12, and changed the font style to Times New Roman to align with MLA format, which is the common formatting of standard essays (to my knowledge).

• Here's the selection from the rough cut

• Here's the selection from the re-edited rough cut

Open Post to Peer Reviewers

Keeping with the nostalgic undertones of my intros, I want to say that almost nothing has stayed the same since the beginning of the year. Looking back from this point in my life I have grown more in one year than all four years of high school combined. I have new friends, 7 new piercings, a caffeine addiction, and a lease on an apartment. Wow.

• Warning: this is an extremely rough draft of the final project so please understand that and prepare yourself before you click on the link

• Weaknesses: it's not even close to being finished, I'm sure there are so many grammatical errors, I'm not quite sure if I even wrote about the right thing? I'm pretty sure I followed the prompt, but again, very rough copy. Also, I know I don't have any supporting evidence. I'm working on it no worries fam

• Strengths: It's an actual full essay. I mean I actually sat down and whipped something up (even though it may not be good), but at least I actually banged the whole thing out. I mean aside from that, I'm not too sure

• Here it is, the VERY VERY ROUGH DRAFT 

Peer Review 15

Wow time just seems to fly by. I sit here in my room with boxes all around me as I start to take apart the life I created here in this tiny little room. At the beginning of the year I thought my roommate was a wild party animal and I wouldn't like her. It turns out she is a crazy wild child, but now we're best friends and I'm living with her again next year. It's crazy how much a year can change.

• I decided to peer review Mariana Chacon's rough cut of her final project

• I decided to make a content suggestion about her rough draft of her standard college essay. I think that by adding evidence that supports the claims made in the reflection, it will help for the readers to witness the evolution as a writer, as you explain it. The reflection should take the readers on a journey of the year and direct quotes from other projects would significantly help.

• I believe that by adding evidence, it will help to gain credibility as an author and show specific examples of how the writer has changed throughout the year.

• I incorporated information about why evidence is necessary for the author to gain credibility with the audience from the suggested readings into my feedback.

• I love how the tone isn't static throughout the entire essay, I think it helps to hold the reader's attention by changing the tone (not too drastically though). Overall, loved the essay and how it seemed to flow so easily!

Peer Review 14

I think I may be the worst procrastinator in the entire world.

• I peer reviewed David Klebosky's content outline  

• I decided to make a outlining suggestion about how his outline meets the requirements of the project 4 rhetorical situation. He seems to focus a lot on the specific projects as main ideas when they should be switched. He should focus on how he realized his writing style has changed and use the different projects as evidence instead.

• I believe that this feedback will help the author to produce a final product that will meet all of the requirements and also make it easier to read and easier to understand how his writing style has changed throughout this year.

• I incorporated the suggestion of how specific evidence can better back a main claim when the roles aren't reversed and can lead to a better overall essay from the suggested reading into my feedback.

• I loved how sure he seems about his writing style and how he's the opposite of a procrastinator. I need to take notes from him because I feel like I'm always dragging behind with the development of my writing process.

Production Report 14b

It's still so crazy to me that I'm almost a sophomore in COLLEGE. When did I become so old? I look back from where I am now and I honestly don't think my high school sophomore self would even recognize me. Crazy how time flies am I right?

• I decided to present my content in paragraph form on a google document since I chose to do a standard college essay. I decided to use a google document since they're easily shareable, unlike a Word document.

• The production of the first body paragraph was a lot more challenging to write since it was a pretty hefty chunk of the essay (in comparsion to the introduction). Really the only main hiccup during this production was my time management (or lack thereof to be more specific). But I still managed to get it done so I consider it an accomplishment.

• Here's the outline of the first body paragraph

• Here's the REALLY REALLY ROUGH adaptation of the first body paragraph

Production Report 14a

As much as I hate dorm life, I'm really going to miss it. I still feel like a little kid living with a bunch of other little kids in a dorm. But next year in an apartment, now that's a whole different ball game. I'm going to have to be an adult, living with other adults...I don't know how I'm going to deal with this.

• I decided to use a paragraph format in a google document to present my raw content in because I'm choosing to write a standard college essay (yay...). I used a google document since it's shareable with people, unlike a word document for peer review purposes.

• The production of this raw material went smoother than expected. It only took me like three hours to start and I only cringed, like, four times while writing it. That's huge for me. However, I'm a little rusty writing a standard college essay since I'm so used to the relaxed writing style of the blog posts.

• Here's the outline of the introduction paragraph

• Here's the SUPER ROUGH adaptation of the introduction paragraph

Production Schedule

Wow, it's hard to believe that this semester's almost over...it's bittersweet really. On one hand, I didn't completely fail out of college, which is good. However, on the other hand, being a sophomore in college means that I'm one step closer to becoming a full-blown adult and being expected to be on top of everything in my life. I don't know if I'm ready for that kind of responsibility.

• Without further ado, here's my production schedule for the final

Content Outline

I don't know how I feel about being almost done with my first year of college. I'm going to have to actually get my stuff together soon since now I'm not a little freshman who can frolic around campus without a care in the world. I'm going to miss that.

My Super Duper Amazing Outline:

• Intro
• Topic Sentence:
• Writing sucks, am I right?
• Background information:
• I've never been that good with writing. Ever since I was little I've always hated writing. I used to dread writing paragraphs in elementary school and book reports in middle school just about killed me. So you can imagine I almost rioted when I was placed in an AP composition and writing class in high school. Being brutally honest, I thought I wouldn't have to take English in college, I thought I was home-free of any more dreadful essays. You can imagine my horror when I found myself in an honors English course at UofA. However, I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that English will always be in my life. It's a love-hate relationship really.
• Thesis:
• I can actually stand English now after realizing the different voices and forms that writing can take place in.
• Body Paragraph 1: The Evolution of My Voice
• Main Claim: By learning how to incorporate my everyday voice into my projects I've learned to distance myself from the stuffy diction-ridden writing I so passionately dislike.
• Evidence: By being able to use everyday language in my blog posts and QRG, I was able to understand that writing doesn't always have to be so serious.
• Importance: This realization was so important for me to grow as a writer since being able to express myself is such an important quality for any kid in the process of becoming a young adult.
• Main Claim: I was able to understand that it's okay to be myself in my writing. I'm slowly learning that my writing self doesn't have to be different than my actual self.
• Evidence: At first I thought that being so casual in my blog posts was a bad thing, but I now realize that that was a stepping stone for me to try on different voices in order to find my own.
• Importance: By trying on different voices (relaxed, passionate, serious, and goofy) I was able to further refine my own personal writing voice and add depth and dimensions to it.
• Body Paragraph 2: The Evolution of My Adaptation
• Main Claim: I've only really experienced standard essays as a means of writing, so I was really unprepared to handle the different genres that were thrown around.
• Evidence:The QRG was most like an essay so I wasn't too thrown off with that, but the podcast was the most unfamiliar to me since I don't have a calm "NPR" voice and I didn't know how to adopt that kind of persona.
• Importance: By being forced into situations I didn't know how to handle (the "sink or swim" method), I was able to refine my skills to handle myself and my writing while under pressure. A great skill to have for the real world; since, you know, the real world is all about being under pressure. 
• Main Claim: I've realized that writing a script and producing a podcast or video essay are two completely different things.
• Evidence: When I wrote my script for both genres, I thought I was basically done and all I needed to do was record it. Wrong. There were so many factors I didn't account for until it was too late.
• Importance: I understand now that writing a script is only half of the process, the actual recording of the videos and podcasts are a whole different beast. Now, if I'm ever asked to make a video (very likely), I'll know more about the actual process work and what's required.
• Body Paragraph 3: The Evolution of My Time Management
• Main Claim: This is the biggest issue I've struggled with all year -- time management.
• Evidence: I literally wait until the last second to complete everything and every single time I always kick myself over it. My project 3 final is perfect proof of that. I missed the deadline by 10 minutes because I severely misjudged the amount of time it would take to edit the video. 
• Importance: Making the same mistake gets really old after a while and apparently I love to learn things the hard way.
• Main Claim: Since I love to procrastinate so much, I had to learn how to trick myself into doing my work on time to not get horrible grades or incompletes on assignments.
• Evidence: Since I know I like to wait to the last minute for blog posts and project deadlines, I would change the deadline to a day before in my calendar from the start and condition myself to believe the new deadline. 
• Importance: This helped my writing process and kept me somewhat on a decent timeline (still a little behind but some people never change am I right?).
• Conclusion
• Bigger picture:
• This class has shaped me so much as a writer since now I don't puke automatically when thinking about writing a paper. Progress right? I realize now that papers aren't as cut and dry as a lot of teachers and professors led me to believe. There are countless genre and genre conventions to choose from that I didn't even realize existed. For this information I'm grateful.
• Restated Thesis:
• Now that I understand how complex English is, I realize that there is literally English in everything and I can't escape it no matter how hard I try. But that also means that there are countless opportunities for me to become a better writer and hone my writing process.