In the first draft of my paper, I always found that they were slightly disorganized. This is because I write all my ideas down first, then when I am done writing I try to put them in a better order. This is something that through revisions my classmates helped me work on. Peers would suggest I switch sentences so that my paragraphs made more sense. Changing the order of my paragraph so my paper flowed better was a common global revision for me. Other common global revisions that I made with the help of classmates was the addition or subtraction of quotes. After the first session of peer editing, my classmates always suggested I add quotes that they felt worked well in their papers. I liked this because I could look at how they incorporated the quote into their paper and incorporate it in a similar way. Throughout the semester, I also learned to ask myself questions that would help me elaborate on ideas. When I explained my quotes I would ask “why is this important?” and “how does this support my argument?”. By asking these questions, it helped me to explain my ideas. These questions also helped me edit others papers. I would ask myself if they were answering those questions. If they didn’t connect it to their thesis, I could leave a note reminding them to do so. In the second session of revision, the focus was local revisions. My peers noticed many grammatical errors that I passed over when rereading my paper which was nice. I find it difficult to pick up on minut mistakes within my own paper, because even if it is wrong, it looks correct. Having a peer edit my paper has helped me succeed in understanding learning outcome 1, because they help me find errors I wouldn’t usually notice. From my first essay to my last essay, I significantly improved in local and global revisions. I understood what global changes would improve my writing, and focused on including as many relevant quotes as possible.
