Revisions: Feedback and Persistence (with student comments in quotes)

Yes, I allow (welcome?) revisions

I welcome revisions in case you are eager to put your best effort towards this writing exercise and keep coming back for more learning. Hint: I am trying to reward perseverance and thereby trick you into caring deeply about what you have the time and space to actually improve upon.

"All writing can be improved on. Even the best of papers can be changed. More often than not, a second opinion or a second proof reader will do your paper more good than harm."

Experience making mistakes is one of few ways to learn, and writing is a great place to learn that.

"Making mistakes is okay. Mistakes are always made and can be corrected. Mistakes really are one of the best ways to learn."

"Getting a paper back with a 50% on it forces you to work hard and learn from mistakes. Revision is an integral process to learning and success."

"Overall, I've learned that most mistakes aren't the end of the world, and that they can be important/useful lessons for the future."

It is important to get practice with mistakes and failure so know what to do differently in the future, so you know how you deal with challenges.

“It's crucial to understand that you are allowed re-writes for the paper so do not feel demoralized when the first one comes back (cause I did for a teeny while). I think this class was a good reality-check on my writing abilities and once I decided to make the most of this opportunity of re-writes, I actually put in effort and time into my papers. This, in turn, really pushed me into becoming a more aware (if not better) writer.”

"I've learned to take a paper I thought was pretty good and reconstruct large portions of it to fix problems that I didn't know existed at first."

I care very much about writing, and so my feedback is extremely extensive. I actually entirely exhausted a red pen during Fall 2017—like, I don’t just mean the ink dried, I mean that the entire barrel went empty. That has never happened to me, but hey, first time for everything, right? It happened a second time Spring 2018. So, this is beginning to be a pattern.

The sunny side of the revisions is that it’s there to acknowledge that you might not have understood things fully on your first try and that you’ll only get better at stuff by revisiting and revising.

"Being able to review for the test and essays let me feel better to correct the mistakes instead of just caring about the grades."

"I thought I could understand the constructs and operations for Paper 1 easily and quickly. I only looked at the surface level and didn't give it much thought until I did poorly and eventually I learned a lot from my mistakes and why I was wrong."

“Use the corrections and flexibility in revisions given to you to help develop your ideas.”

"Being able to rewrite papers showed me how much I have learned over the semester, so much so that when I rewrote my paper I was inclined to change large portions because I had new knowledge to replace it with. "

The exams have fixed dates, and you can correct them for half credit.

“I think understanding that the exams are application-based is helpful. So, instead of focusing on what will come out on the exam, focus on how to make the "research paper" better. When I stopped thinking of exams as exams and more as a discussion with a professor who is asking for my feedback on the paper, it started becoming easier. Remembering that you are allowed to correct your exams is also a stress-relief.”

And there are some deep personal victories that come with this revising process.

"I've learned I have strength in conviction, but more so that I've grown in my ability to take criticism."

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