Chapter 12: Edit, Edit, Edit

Although I have not had class since last Monday, I have been working on English. Since then I have been editing my paper. Even though I don’t have all of the edits done, I do have all but one done, and they have been very helpful. I was grateful for all the little mistakes that my peers caught like spelling, forgetting a punctuation mark and even just changing or taking out a word to make the sentence flow better, which I believe my paper as a whole now does. I have also been able to figure out which sentences needed rewording, which needed more explanation, which has been useful because I may have known which areas of my paper needed work, but I wasn’t exactly sure what they needed or how to fix it. I was grateful that although there was a lot I need to change in my paper, it wasn’t a piece of garage that had tons of edits on every page. This was encouraging both as a student and as someone who wants to one day become a writer. I know that this paper was strong before, and that it is now stronger due to my peers. I also know that it will be even stronger after I finish my last edit, which will be the most useful, seeing as how the edits are from the person who will be grading it. I am glad the Professor edited my paper because it shows me an idea of what I would have gotten on my paper had I turned it in as is. It’s also great because being an English Professor she will catch even more errors, and give me even more useful edits than my peers. Another great thing about it is the fact that for the things I wasn’t too sure about how to do in my paper she will tell me how to do it right, or how to do it better. All in all, I feel much more confident about my paper not only for the grade that I feel I receive, but also for the product of what is in my paper, and that I have successfully said all that I set out to say. I feel that although it was a long process, the way we did this research paper was very useful. I am glad that we changed the syllabus so we were able to do it this way, and that we  have the opportunity to do extra things or spend extra time on assignments to do better in the class, like this extra credit blog entry.