In Anne Lamott’s passage titled “Shitty First Drafts,” Lamott explains that first drafts are not meant to be good. I think that is was enlightening for me to read because I was struggling to see how my first draft could be any good. Some of the mistakes that I have noticed were explicitly explained as normal in this essay. She explains that many times her first draft is double the length it should be, and I cut my first draft short because it was beginning to be too long while in retrospect, there are many parts that I need to shorten and/or delete from my essay. Some of the other things in the essay were simply reinforced for me because in high school, one of my friends was on her way to publishing her first novel, so she gave me plenty of insight on the writing process. I don’t think anything from the passage offended me because it was obvious that the writer was simply giving advice about essay writing, not attacking poorly written first drafts.
My revisions are going to take a little bit of time, but I know my essay will improve exponentially if I take the time to revisit the essay. My goal for this essay is to stay 100% on prompt while effectively using commentary to explain the point I am making. One major part I need to cut down on is in the part where I explain what Cornerstone Ranch is. Another thing I will change is fix my wordy sentences so that they are more succinct and easy to follow. I will also lengthen a few of my paragraphs by adding more commentary so that the paragraphs match each other in explanations. The other major change I will make is adding one of the paragraphs to my thesis in a more explicit way instead of simply implying that I am going to cover the topic of replaceablitiy. I think getting to peer review was a large factor in me realizing my mistakes, so I am glad that we were able to do this. The last thing I will do after making these changes is reread my essay and make sure the order makes sense still and that I don’t want to switch around paragraphs or make any minor changes. I think the biggest challenge I will run into is rewording the wordy sentences because most of those were ones that I had trouble figuring out how to word the first time. In order to get past this, I think I will read a few ideas of wordings out loud so that I can hear if they sound right. If this doesn’t work, I will ask a friend to read the sentence and hear my ideas so that hopefully I can find the one that works the best.
I think it can be a good thing to write a lot in the beginning because then all of your thoughts are there and then you can cut the things that aren’t necessary. This is a lot better than struggling to find things to write and then just adding “fluff” so I think you will succeed with this correction. Reading out loud is such a great tool! I know for myself I usually skim the things I read so reading out loud helps me find my mistakes. I think by doing this, it will help accomplish both of your goals for changing your paper. It will help you hear the flow of the paper and will show you where you need to fix the wording.
Writing whatever comes to mind can often get the creative juices flowing and get out everything you need in the essay. It is better to have too much content and have the ability to weed it down into a perfect essay rather than lacking the content in the first place. In the future, don’t be uptight about what your draft contains, because everyone’s has problems. This is why we peer edit.