Taylor Haran

Haran 1

Professor Melton
English 5
19 February 2016
Writers Narrative
Being blindsided with a grade you didnt want on an assignment you thought you nailed
is one of the most disappointing feelings you experience in college. The root of the problem is
always in your beginning stages of writing; your writing process was flawed in some way. There
were three things that were wrong in my writing process when putting together the essay I will
discuss: I did not outline before I began my draft, writing the paper seemed unusually easy and
after I wrote my paper I did not reread or revise it before turning it in.
The piece of writing Im going to be dissecting is one of my final assignments from my
journalism 55 class. My writing process began with reading the assigned task; my professor did
not give a detailed prompt, because the essay would be unique to each student. The task was to
interview a person that grew up in the 1940s or 1950s, understand their experience with going to
the movies, compare it to our personal experience and write about it. There were not explicit
guidelines on how my professor wanted us to structure our essays, except that it had to be at least
two pages long and double spaced. I decided to interview my grandma, and I collected good data
for my essay. I underestimated this essay and believed I could ace it without outlining my ideas
or even writing a rough draft. The only notes I had were the ones I took down when I
interviewed my grandma.

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Writing the essay seemed like a breeze; I used a narrative style to tell the story of my
interview with my grandma, while I added in my own experiences with the movies on the fly as I
wrote. I realized when I felt like I was done, I didnt reach the minimum-two page requirement,
so I added unnecessary words to some of my shorter sentences in the essay to make it longer, and
barely reached two pages. After reading it over again, I printed my essay.
As I read over my final draft of the essay today, I see a plethora of errors I could fix that
would have given me the A grade I wanted. One of my initial major mistakes was not outlining
my ideas before I started writing; doing this wouldve fixed many of my organizational
problems. Another step that would have improved my writing process would be that I thoroughly
proofread my essay before turning it in. I have never been the student that writes an essay the
night before its due, so I had no excuse for not rereading my essay a couple more times. Murray
in The Makers Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts describes the importance, and even fun
you can have editing your own work. This sounds tedious if you havent done it, but actually it
is fun (Murray, 59). Although I may not agree with Murray that the revision process is fun, it is
necessary, and it was arrogant of me to think my writing skills were good enough to go without a
second look. If I reread my essay more, I could have caught that I did not even write a clear
thesis statement.
Another factor that could have improved my essay would be to not just read over my
essay and change some words, but to revise it; Sommers addresses that most students confuse the
two concepts in Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers. She
says, the students believe that most problems in their essays can be solved by rewording
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(Sommers 381). I did believe this when writing this essay, especially when I was trying to add
longer words to meet the two-page requirement; my main focus when reading my essay over was
not to revise it, or consider my topic, but to make sure my essay was long enough and sounded
academic. When these things were my main concerns, I skipped over the fact that I didnt have a
thesis, and that my ideas were unorganized. I should have revised my paper, meaning looking
over my main ideas and making sure they connect with my thesis and my body paragraphs. This
would have guaranteed a clear and organized essay, but I was arrogant and thought the
assignment was easy and I could complete it in one try. Lamott in Shitty First Drafts says that
even the best and most experienced writers she knows have terrible first drafts. I know some
very great writers Not one of them writes elegant first drafts (Lamott 21-22). If I revised my
essay after writing my first draft, had it peer reviewed and rewrote it again, I would have turned
in a significantly better essay than I did.
In conclusion, my final essay I turned in for my journalism 55 class last semester was not
my best. My writing process was flawed and caused me to receive a lower grade than I
anticipated and wanted. The major things I could have done to make my essay better were to
prewrite, reread and revise my paper before deciding it was done. Writing this essay helped me
realize these flaws in my writing process, and as a result, I will always revise my essays before I
turn them in.

Works Cited
Lamott, Ann. Shitty First Drafts. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New
York; Pantheon, 1994. 25.
Murray, Donald M. The Makers Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts. The McGraw-Hill
Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: CUNY.
2002.
56-60.
Sommers, Nancy. Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.
College Composition and Communication 31.4 (Dec 1980): 378-88.