The Fifth Week: Revision Process

The reading titled, “Fifth Week: Revision Process”, thoroughly indicates and illustrates the importance of the revision process. Revision is the most important aspect in the writing process and without it, growth and progression are beyond the bounds of possibility. The author states that, “revision requires that you loosen your grip” (221). In other words, it is extremely helpful to take a step back, look at your essays, and review the structure of your writings. This will allow the writer to recognize those specific parts in their essays where they can improve and add more details or supportive evidence. This process of re-seeing is crucial. The author is clearly trying to inform the readers that in order to develop balance and clear sense of purpose, they must endure the difficult and repetitive process of revision.

The first step in revision is distinguishing your purpose. Without a purpose the readers are left with a frail sense of direction. In order to catch the audience and formally take a stance on a particular topic, the writer must identify and clarify your purpose as soon as possible. If the writer is unable to determine their purpose for writing then it is important that they develop their position precisely.

In addition to purpose, the thesis statement plays an active role in strengthening the entirety of an essay. The thesis statement reveals the writer's primary points. The thesis statement justifies the writer's purpose and it is important to take a personalized approach when developing this purpose . In other words, it is far more beneficial to add your own voice and personal characterization within an essay, rather that accounting for another person's thoughts or actions.

All throughout this reading, the author repetitively addressed the importance of revision and the significance of attacking the draft, literally. The author provides accommodating exercises, such as "dissecting the fish", "directing the reader's response", and "cut and paste revision", all of which were precious examples of revision. These exercises allow the writer to cut up their essays, see the holes in their previous drafts, and piece different paragraphs together, revealing a completely different composition.

With the semester closing in and the portfolio in close reach, it is safe to say that this reading is a perfect example of where I am at right now in the writing process; the revision process. This reading has helped me distinguish and strengthen my purpose for writing all throughout my Unit 2 and Unit 3 essays. With the help of the "cut and paste revision" exercise, I have acknowledged the importance of revision and how beneficial this process truly is. Being able to look at your own pieces of writing and see them in a completely different way allows room for growth and addition. With this in mind, I will be able to structure my Unit 2 and Unit 3 essays by strengthening my purpose/stance in a creative way and adding depth and voice all throughout each essay.

Reading Response 6: The Fifth Week

In regards to revising drafts for the portfolio, this paper really has a lot of good tips and information. It is able to guide a writer in every single step in perfecting the draft. At first, since I do not write a lot of essays, revision of a draft for me was just revising for language such as grammar, transitions and flow of the essay. However, this is not the case because it is about fortifying your thesis, purpose, facts, and basically how they are presented. The fifth week mentions a lot about purpose, which makes sense because that is where a paper begins and how you introduce or present that purpose is key in creating that bond or attraction between the essay and the reader. We write essays for other people to read it, therefore like what is mentioned in the fifth week, we need to re-see it in their view and not get too attached to it till it blinds you from all its mistakes. Another good point made in this essay, was controlling the information that is used because we do not want a paper to sound like a report. We need a proper balance of facts and our opinions to win the wrestling match as it is stated in the fifth week.
I really liked the tips of cut-and-paste revision, which pretty much helped me a lot in identifying my strong and weak points in my essay. I think the most important question that came out to me after reading the fifth week was, Why should my readers care about what I need to say? This basically helped me in making my draft into a stronger paper.

The Fifth Week

The Fifth Week essay was very effective on providing information on how to go about revising my papers for the portfolio. I like in the beginning of the Reading how it talks about when you trying to revise your paper it can be very difficult because your almost attached to your writing and it is hard to see past what you wrote and see the problems in your writing. Separating your writing into almost puzzle pieces so your writing is just all mixed around is what this reading suggests. This will help you be able to pull out the problems in your writing in order to make your writing smoother. I have never used this tool for revising but it really seems like a good way to go about revising. I myself finds it very difficult to revise just for the simple fact that I have already read through the piece so many times and did so many corrections that I don’t even want to think about the paper. Separating my paragraphs and trying to put them in different parts of my essay will definitely open my mind up to creating a stronger smoother essay.
I am also going to have another set of eyes from multiple sources like it subjects in this reading. I find that other peoples opinions really help with finding different problems with my essay. This allows a different view or angle that might give me new ideas to add to my Essays. The writing center will be a good source for me to start from when it comes to having a fresh set of eyes go over my paper so I plan to use them.

Unit 3b Op-Ed

Video game addiction, is it real? Is it a problem?

It was only about a month ago when I finally manage to have a firsthand experience in the video gaming culture. This new culture is highly popular in youths nowadays, because it is fun and everyone is doing it which basically makes it a norm. However, for those involved, does it produce a constant invisible threat to their well-being? In other words, does video game addiction exist to those who are susceptible to it? Easy answer, yes it does.

Majority of people are unaware to its existence, because I think it’s the kind of thing that you really have to experience it for yourself to really understand what it is all about. Thus, video game addiction is really hard to explain and since it is not officially recognize by the American Medical Association as a mental disorder, makes it far more dangerous than other addictions. Just like playing the slot machine, video game manufacturers has successfully found a way to encourage obsessive playing through a psychological mechanism known as “variable rate of reinforcement”. This is where fake or virtual rewards and achievements are given to players for completing something like a level or a mission. It is hard to believe but this actually feeds people’s need in their desire to complete one, two, three missions and it never stops because more missions just keep coming. For online video game such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, its either you are addicted to it or you don’t play it at all. It is hard to be in the middle due to the obsessive playing required to reach maximum level and get the best items which keeps on being added in every update.

So why should we care about this? Although the U.S. has not seen much of this addiction yet, it is a major concern in countries such as South Korea and China due to their fast broadband and easy access to video gaming. To make it worse, most of those involved in these are kids or youths, whom are the future of the country. It has been reported that at least three million South Koreans are addicted to video games and with the plan for a huge upgrade of the U.S. broadband by the FCC by 2020, this numbers could reach the U.S. and even surpass it very soon.

To those who don’t know this by now, youths or students these days are more vulnerable to video gaming addiction because of boredom and difficulty in socializing. However, for a student, video game addiction usually leads them to stop going to classes, running out of money, violence and sleep deprive. What's more, these video game addicts are usually the last one to notice that they are addicted to video gaming and when that happens, all is too late because by then, they already had been kicked out of school or having major health issues due to excessive gaming. Even worse, so far twelve deaths have been associated with video gaming addiction. Blood cloth has been known to develop from sitting for too long due to excessive gaming. Also, due to need of high concentration needed to play video games, it is common for video gamer addicts to lose track of time. Another story is when a baby dies of hunger because both young parents were too addicted to video games and forgot to feed their child.

Don’t get me wrong, there are benefits, but the harm that is caused by video gaming usually always outweighs it all the time. This is why video game is such a dangerous tool, when not controlled. Like everything, too much of anything is not good. Moderation is the key when it comes to playing video games. Therefore, the government, teachers, parents and the general public should take early precaution to prevent this problem before it comes to the U.S.

Reading Response 6: Politics and the English Language

In this reading by George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", it clearly shows what he is implying to is that the English language has changed within the years and it has changed to the worst thanks to political writings. Writers has became more vague and inept towards getting to a point or basically explaining what they are trying to convey. Ready made phrases are used to make a sentence instead of using or creating phrases by themselves because this is more easier for the writers. Orwell calls this meaningless words because, by his standards these words are just long sentences going on and on about something without really going to the point and this abuse makes the English language look very bad. Also, by using for example Latin words gives an impression that the writer has class and elegance in his writing, which however backfires and does not explain what they are trying to say, this actually moves his focus further away from the target of the topic.

Metaphor in this reading is mentioned over and over again because these dying metaphors that are used has lost its meaning and the writers blindly use this metaphors to describe what they are trying to say instead of actually thinking and describing something they are trying to explain using their very own words. Which also shows how the writer does not know what he or she is talking about and further proves that he has not interest in writing about the topic. These are basically the main causes of downfall in the English language. However, it is not too late to fix this, there are numerous ways to get our message across in a paper as a writer and it involves using the simplest words to explain conrete thoughts in our minds and not ready made phrases and unrelated metaphors.

After reading this paper, it made me realize how much I have been into this same loop hole of never ending explanation without ever getting to the point just to be able to impress readers with jargon words which are meaningless. With this help and new information I hope I will be able to avoid these common mistakes created by political writings to further improve my convey in thoughts.

Reading Response 5: "YES/ NO/ OKAY, BUT" Three Ways to Respond

For this reading, it clearly explains the development of a stance in an argumentative essay. In order to create a strong stance, we need to basically respond in a certain manner, and that is by using the three different ways of responding to an issue, which are disagreeing, agreeing or agreeing and disagreeing at the same time. This may sound easy, but in order to create a strong stance it needs to be explained or proven otherwise.

For instance when disagreeing, it is important to not only explain and back it up with facts but also able to convince readers with your own statements and reasoning by making it very obvious to the reader. However by agreeing, it is important to point out something that the facts that you used probably forgot or failed to mention. The tricky part comes to when you have to disagree and agree at the same time because it is hard to not contradict yourself when coming up with this stance.

These methods are very important and will help me a lot in introducing my stance in my argumentative paper because it creates a more complex argument that separates it to the common thinking and view of that issue.

Ploitics and the English Language

In George Orwell's essay on, "Politics and the English Language", Orwell strongly explains and criticizes the distortion of our modern English language, as well as the destructive influences that politics has continued to have on the writing process. Orwell disputes the fact that over time our use of descriptive and accurate language has declined immensely. As a result, the composition of writing begins to lack more and more truth. This is due to political and economic causes, which in time may end up becoming effects, or visa versa. Not only is this concealing many political problems, but it creates a disguise for thought, especially among those who do not know the truth. We are unaware of what is actually going on, so therefore, our characterization, our language, is inevitably lost. We begin to use "foolish" language that represents our "foolish" thoughts. Writing becomes pointless, vague, and misinterpreted. The point of views that others may have, can in no way, be expressed properly. We do not understand our thoughts, they become unclear and concealed, so therefore we are unable to express our feelings accurately.

The point of George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language", is to get rid of these "foolish ways" and become one with our thoughts. Our thoughts can guide or imagination, as well as our form of communication.