Revision Reflection

Corrections Made
Even with the high grade my autoethnography paper received, there were several
revisions I made to the paper. The most common revision made was cutting unnecessary
sentences. These would be anything from sentences that; repeated information, made points
unrelated to the paragraph, or were too emotional/not objective enough. I also rewrote some
sentences and sections of paragraphs. These rewrites were done by cutting extra words, replacing
lengthy passages with more concise sentences and phrases, as well as completely changing the
presentation of information in sentences to better fit the section it was in. Lastly, I went through
the paper and replaced words that could be improved.
Reasons For Revisions
There are only three main reasons I made these revisions. The most important reason was
to improve the Ethos of the writing. The paper as a whole tended to be objective, but a few
sentences and phrases were more emotional than necessary for the audience of the paper. One
example of this happened in the My Writing Process section of the paper. While explaining the
reason I wrote at night, I spent a sentence writing about how football used to influence my
writing time. A sentence with only emotional appeal that did not forward the section at all. By
removing these emotional sentences, the Ethos is more professional and matches the audiences
expectations. Secondly, these revisions were made to make the paper more concise. Several
paragraphs contained sentences, phrases, and words that did not progress the paper. For instance,
I spent three sentences and almost 70 words explaining the motives behind the creators of
Adventure Time airing the show. After revising, it took only two sentences and 37 words to
make the same point in an equally effective way. By making the paper more concise, I increase
the audience appeal and make the paper more efficient. The final reason I made these revisions
was to improve the overall grammar of the paper. Although grammar doesnt account for much
of the grade of this paper, improving word choice, location, and presence has a great effect. Not
only does it make the paper more efficient, it makes the flow of the paper better and increases
ethos. This was especially the case in paragraph one and two of the Rhetorical Situation
section of the paper. By replacing the words overall point, purpose, and goal with the
word exigence, the section sounded more community-appropriate and made the section flow
better.
Key Thing Learned
I have learned several key things about my writing and revision process at this point in
the class. I learned that my writing process is very time consuming. The self-reflection I did
during unit two showed me that it can take upwards of forty-five minutes for me to write a
paragraph. With this however, I also learned that this time-consuming process also leads to me
writing consistent, thorough papers. I also learned that my writing process is recursive. I
previously thought that because I write from start to finish, my process was straight forward.
Now its evident that my constant sentence editing and revising during the writing process shows
just how recursive my process is, even if it works for me. What key thing I have learned about
my revision process is that its very effective, especially if I let others help through peer revising.
This is evident by the high grade I received on the paper as well as the limited amount of post-
final draft edits I made that were vital to the paper. This is not to say my revision process is
perfect, but so far in this class no major problems with my process have appeared.