The process of this essay has been difficult for me. When i wrote my first draft I felt very worried. I didn’t know if i was rambling or not saying enough, if my draft was clear and concise. I wanted to say a lot but i also knew that overloading the reader with information wasn’t going to benefit anybody. I tried to follow the guidelines. I also wanted my argument to be clear. I tried to back it up with claims that supported it the best. After the first workshop i felt like i already knew some of my faults like starting my essay off with too many general statements and not having strong enough topic sentences. So i was curious what my peers would add on or say about it .
After meeting with my partner for peer review i realized this step was necessary and very helpful. Most of the time when we look for feedback we only think of our professors. We think that because they are the ones giving us our grades that only their input matters. At first i was skeptical in having my peers look at my essay, but after Tuesday I realized that this was only to help me and improve my essay. After engaging in a discussion about our work on Tuesday we were able to touch on key points relevant to our essay, such as arguments, topic sentences and structures. My partner helped me realize that my argument needed some tweaking, that my own experiences were something that should be mentioned and that I needed to do some clarification in my essay. There were some ideas that weren’t fully developed and explained.
I took my partners comments and critiques in mind when peer reviewing my own. I went over my essay as if I didn’t know anything, would someone who wasn’t in this class be able to understand my essay and take something away from it ? I realized i need to work on the flow of my essay and not just have information and citations included. My input also needs to be included. Also fix things like the title. My partner had suggested that my title seemed too general and not specific enough. I want to try and come up with another one that will represent my essay best. My next steps for essay 1 are another draft. I am going to try and fix my argument and include my own personal experience. I think that peer reviewing is also a good thing so after I finish my next draft i am going to have someone else look at it and let me know what they think. And once i do corrections after i am going to try and do another draft before my final piece.
But for starters I know that my topic sentence could use improvement. One of them is “In order to achieve happiness a person must have experiences” would it sound better if it said “ Experiences are the foundation every person needs to be happy” or is that the same ? I want to emphasize that experiences are a big part of what makes a person happy. It is what my paragraph is all about. Another sentence is “Actions are a very big part of happiness” I think it’s too short and could also use work would a better sentence be “What we do, the choices we make , affect how happy we are” In this paragraph I talk about what we do with our money, how we use it to create our happiness. Looking forward to receiving feedback.