Hi everyone!

In this week's reading, The Craft of Research | Chapter 14 (pp. 203-210), authors Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, discuss an effective perspective to revising a rough draft. The article focuses on revision from "top-down," where "from global structure to words, you are more likely to read as your readers will than if you start at the bottom, with words and sentences, and work up" (7). Readers don't consume the content of our papers by analyzing what every single sentence is trying to say, but rather by main ideas that get across in our introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. One important takeaway from this reading for me was that the conclusion and introduction should both contain the main idea of the essay, however, "they should at least not contradict each other. Nor should they be identical; make the one in your conclusion more specific and contestable" (7). This was an important takeaway for me because in past papers, what I would do is copy paste my thesis from the end of my introduction, and reword it in a way where it sounded like it was a concluding sentence at my conclusion. However, this is not the best way to conclude a paper. Rather, it's better to have the main point in the conclusion add specificity and stands against "its own scrutiny" (6). Therefore, a rough draft may be a blurb of ideas, but the identification of the main points, and the effectiveness of those points, will carry on into the second draft to shape the paper with a strong foundation for supporting information, data, and quotes.

For the visual element for this blog post, I've added a word cloud surrounding the process of revising a rough draft. Words that stand out by size are "writing," "process," and "time," which is indicative of how a rough draft is only the beginning of a much longer process, but it's important to start somewhere, and make substantial and purposeful changes throughout the process to end up at a solid, polished, and effective final draft.