WRITING PROCESS

What I learned, and advice for others

Both assignments featured above required individuals to share their rough drafts with two or more people to be thoroughly reviewed. The expectation was for each individual to provide constructive feedback to their peers and, in turn, receive feedback in return. Subsequently, the individuals had the responsibility of accepting the feedback or declining it and incorporating the approved feedback to refine and enhance their drafts in preparation for the final submission.

When writing large pieces of text, I often encounter the challenge of being tunnel-visioned, risking the loss of sight regarding the message behind my words, all in pursuit of completing the assignment. This tendency of mine can result in unsatisfactory and lackluster work, which the reader may be able to catch on to. Thus, I have come to recognize that it is vital to have multiple perspectives to review my work as they can catch mistakes that I may have missed. During my process of receiving feedback, Treyce Bigelow, posed a simple but thought-provoking question, "I think this is a great reflection, but how is your mindset weak?" This challenging question proved instrumental as my essay's essence rested on exploring the vulnerabilities in my current mindset and outlining my journey toward improving that mindset for future success. Prompted by this feedback, I revisited my work, diving deeper into the nuances of my mindset and redirected it back to my envisioned success story. Despite the time it took to revise my narrative, the feedback served as a catapult that redirected the trajectory of my narrative back toward its main message. Consequently, my advice to other writers on the revising process is to embrace vulnerability to feedback. While feedback might be harsh and even call into question the foundational ideas of writing, the most challenging aspect of any writing assignment is navigating through constructive criticism.

Moreover, while I have received great feedback from many other peers, the most impactful part of the writing process was giving feedback to others. Giving feedback to other people made me realize that honesty is the key to success. At times, I was holding back to protect the feelings of my fellow peers which only hurt them more. Instead, I should have talked to them or elaborated more on my feedback so it didn't just feel like unsolicited criticism. For instance, in Treyce Bigelow's Scholarship Essay, I commented, "I don't think you should begin with this though because it does seem a bit basic and may disway others from continuing to read your narrative." While I had called Treyce's intro "basic" it pushed him to further reflect on how he could improve his hook to better attract the reader's attention. Ultimately, the writing process taught me valuable insights that not only enhanced my own writing but also contributed to the improvement of others' writings.