This is the pre-writing activity I did for my Social Media project to get some ideas out.

This prewriting activity was super helpful in terms of organizing a first draft because I could move sticky notes around on the table in order to “rearrange” my essay and the order in which ideas would be written. What I did not do enough of is integrate sources into my prewriting. I am very glad I tried out this activity, and I will definitely put it to better use in the future!

When revising, I mostly had to focus on the integration of more outside sources into my paper. I did not use nearly enough sources the first time around. I went back and built up the claims I had already made and added sources to support and/or complicate them. I also had to move some paragraphs around so that the essay flowed better overall. The class activity of highlighting different sources in different colors opened my eyes to the lack of sources I had in my paper. I actually used this color-coding technique on my final draft to make sure I had integrated enough sources. I also used peer-review comments to fix small errors such as MLA format and the content of my introduction. This project helped me build on my skills of integrated the ideas of others into my own work, and also of approaching writing as a recursive process. I definitely edited this paper a lot, and the final is not as similar to my first draft as I thought it would be. I think my final essay is sufficient, thought I wish we had more time between the first and final draft to really focus on revising. We only had two days, and I personally had two exams and a lab presentation in those two days, so I did not spend nearly as much time as I would have liked to on this paper. However, I did try my best for the situation I was in.