After successfully completing this week's Learning Module, you should:

• Review the assignment sheet and rubric to ensure that all parts of the essay assignment have been completed

• Better understand why it's important to avoid second person (you/your) in writing for an outside audience and review three grammar and mechanics errors common in personal statements: comma usage, capitalization, and subject-verb agreement

• Post a full draft of Essay #1 to the Canvas Discussions page for peer review and then complete two reply comments for other students' drafts by the deadline

• Apply techniques for effective revision, editing, and proofreading

• Turn in Essay #1 by sharing a document from Word or Google with "Can Edit"/"Editor" permissions and complete the Process Portfolio in Canvas by the due date using the Assignments tool

This week you'll do a quick review of some (to be honest) not very interesting material, including a review of grammar/mechanics issues that are especially important for this kind of personal statement used for an application. The hope is that by checking your understanding and having access to the rules you'll be able to improve your own draft and have some additional focus to help someone else when we do peer review. With that in mind, the most important thing you'll do this week is to post your draft and comment on two others closely following the calendar due dates. Someone else is counting on you, so don't let them down.               

If you're stuck or already behind, make sure you email/text your professor right away. As I've said before, there's no judgment--just a desire to help you pass this class.         

I also want to remind you again that the Roxbury Community College Learning Center is a really important resource, especially for scholarship and application essays. They are available on campus or they can work with you online in a couple of different ways. 

If you don't connect with the Learning Center to improve your own grade on Essay #1 or because you can use your finished statement in the future to apply for a scholarship/transfer application, do it because you get +1% extra credit added to your course grade each time you get help (max of 5%). To get the extra credit make sure you provide me with evidence that you worked with a tutor, usually an email from the Learning Center or a screenshot/photo. 

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You can see a video walkthrough of this week's assignments and where to submit them here.

How Can I Keep Track of All This Stuff? Use a Checklist

Maybe you know this from hearing other people say it or from your own experience, but most people think they are bad writers. Part of that assumption comes from the fact that classes like this tend to encourage students to think their ability as a writer is tied to the grades they receive on an assignment. If I get a C, then I must not be a good writer, the logic goes. 

But I know that grades reflect a lot more than just your ability as a writer. They also include whether or not an essay matches the assignment and whether all of the small technical details (think MLA page format or even proofreading for grammar issues) are covered; they also usually reflect the impact of our lives outside of class, whether that's work, childcare obligations, or something else that might make it hard to get work finished and show our best selves.  Because your ability to do the things that lead to good writing is to a large extent determined by how much time you have and whether you think it matters--two things I can't realistically hope to change in a short period of time, unfortunately--it's important to look for ways to shortcut the process. My way to help is to give you a checklist. 

To use this checklist open your own essay and make sure everything is present. If you see something in the checklist and you're not sure what it means, email or text your professor for clarification. 

Review: Assignment Sheet and Scoring Rubric

I know you've looked at these things before, but I want to encourage you to always recheck the assignment sheet when you complete an assignment. The goal is to help you catch anything you might have missed the first time and adjust your work if it's needed. 

As you look at the assignment sheet specifically, make sure you pay special attention to the length range. Ordinarily for our class you can be +/- 10% and not lose points, but for the Common Application anything above 650 words must be revised since if you were to use this essay outside of class to apply there is a hard cap that cuts the essay off at this point. I can help with this, but the key is to not have any words that aren't essential since good writing is efficient. That is, good writing needs to express big ideas simply in the fewest words possible. If you have an important part of the story that feels bad to cut, think about keeping a second longer version for yourself and using the shorter one for this assignment. Most importantly, remember that the word count doesn't make the writing good or bad; it's just an additional consideration to keep in mind to get the best grade you can. 

To see the files you need in order to check your work, look for links above the activity chart at the end of this page or visit the Shared Folder link in Canvas. 

Second Person in Writing for an Outside Audience

I want to take a second to review an important writing rule that could also help you do better on the first essay. That's the use of second person--you and your--in writing that's intended for an outside audience (i.e. not known to you). Now I know you've been hearing these rules for years, like don't use "I" when you write, and then sometimes you later hear that it's okay to use "I" in essays that don't require a notion of objectivity. That can give the impression that these are arbitrary or just some professor's preference. But let me explain the reasoning why this particular rule is important for the kind of writing we're doing.

In writing for an outside audience (which is most of what you do in college) we have to avoid language that could push readers away--especially when we want to change their mind. For example, I had a student last year who was writing for a different essay about the death penalty for murder cases. As I read her essay I came across a line that said "When you murder someone the family is deeply affected." Immediately I thought, I'm not a murderer--what does this writer think of me? The same thing happened when an ENG 101 student was writing about the impact of pregnancy on educational goals and said "When you find out you're pregnant," only this time the writer pushed away people like me who are interested in the topic of education but won't be getting pregnant any time soon. 

Of course, there are exceptions, and you might have noticed that I use you/your on these Learning Module pages. The exceptions are cases when:

• You know the reader directly

• You're giving instructions, directions, or advice

• You frame the sentence as a conditional "If you ________, then ________" since readers opt-in

To replace you/your all you need to do is revert back to the general noun form. For example, instead of saying "you might have noticed" I could say "it should be easy to notice"; instead of saying "when you murder someone" I could say "when a murder is committed" to remove the you/your. Since this is hard to catch with regular proofreading, especially if you're not used to following the rule, I'd recommend using the search feature within your document (ctrl + f for PC, or command + f for Mac; for phones check this guide). 

The bottom line: I'll be working all semester to help you break this habit. For the first essay you'll save 3 points (or 3% of your assignment grade) in the Language and Style section of the essay rubric, and that goes up as the semester goes on, so it's good to work on it now. 

To see more on second person, review this handout from Long Beach City College. 

So, the verdict is in: we wouldn't capitalize high school unless the name of the school was High School high school, and that's not very likely (though your professor did go to Basic High School, so anything is possible). 

Subject-Verb Agreement

One last mechanics issue I want you to review is subject-verb agreement. Basically, that's whether or not the number matches between who is doing something (singular/plural) and what is being done (singular/plural). For example, if I say "Why is your parents on vacation?" I have a mismatch. That's because with a plural subject ("parents") I need to use a plural verb ("are"). 

To check whether you need to do some review, do the following:

1. Go to this website from Towson University and complete the practice exercise.

2. On the results page you'll see the correct answer and below that your answer. 

3. If you got the question wrong click the link to the rule and review.

I'll admit, this rule is especially hard if instead of using the rules to check your work you use how something sounds. That's because in conversation, especially in Hawaiʻi where I'm from, we tend to not follow this rule when we speak (or a lot of other rules). That means how things sound don't always match how they are supposed to be in formal writing. This is a good example of a habit that could take a long time to break and a solid case for something called code switching where we don't change who we are but get a feeling when to make adjustments in how we present ourselves (think how you text vs. how you write for our class). Just keep an eye out for times someone encourages you to switch in your formal writing and pay close attention as you revise. 

Now that you've spent some time looking at ways to improve the grammar and mechanics in your writing, take the initiative to review and correct your own draft before peer review. 

Activity: Peer Review

Now that we've spent some time improving your essay draft, it's time to start the peer review process. Peer review is your opportunity to get feedback on your essay draft from a real audience as well as see how other students approached the same assignment.

One of the biggest challenges when we write is that we don't know how readers will react or where they might get confused. The way we get around this--whether it's for a college class or a project at work--is to have someone else read and give us feedback. And that's not just for beginning writers; everyone from famous authors like J.K. Rowling (You're a wizard Harry!) to me when I work on my own research (obviously I'm not famous or worth $1.2 billion or notoriously transphobic), gets feedback from someone else. 

Uploading Your Draft for Peer Comments

The first step, as you might expect, is to post your draft. This shouldn't be any harder than making a regular Discussion Forum post, which is something you've already done for this class. The only difference is that when you make your post you need to attach a file for your essay. The big thing here is that you need to use a file type everyone can open--either .docx (Word) or PDF or a link shared from Word 365/Google Docs. I can help with this if you're not sure how to save/export (or see this tutorial for Google Docs or this one for Word 365). You can also (and probably should) use the text box for your post to tell readers what you're concerned about or point to anything where you'd like their opinion on the draft. 

Finding a Draft to Comment on and Making Comments

Once you've posted your draft you can look for other drafts to comment on. Of course, the kind of feedback you give makes a huge difference. I think that sometimes bad comments, ones that are too demanding ("you did this wrong") or completely checked out ("good"), come from not having the right attitude about the paper you're reviewing. My suggestion is to think of it like it's your paper and use your understanding of the assignment to help the writer do better. In addition to those kinds of comments, the ones that make suggestions or point to areas that might need another look, spend some time just describing what you're thinking as a reader. I mean, tell them where you're confused or where you're not sure what something means. Finally, tell the writer when you really like something; just don't write "good" at the end and move on--be specific. And if you get stuck and don't know what to say, try using these questions or the essay checklist I provided earlier in this module to guide your input. 

Also, make sure when you take a draft to review that it doesn't already have two reviews posted and consider posting in the Discussions thread that you're working on comments for this essay so others know it's taken. When you get a draft to work on you'll want to either insert comments or type using a different color font (the person will need to be able to see your comments); or you could also type them in the forum post, but it can be harder to know where you're talking about something. Here's a tutorial for making comments Microsoft Word and one for Google Docs which is the best way to do this task. 

No matter what method you use, your comments need to be something the other person can include as part of their answer in the Process Portfolio assignment that's also due on October 6th with your essay. When you're done--ideally a few comments per page, though the more you have the more you help--save the file with a new name so they know it's the version where you made your suggestions.  

Uploading the Draft with Your Comments

After you've saved the file containing your comments with a different name you need to go back to the Canvas Forum where you originally got the essay. Then you need to find the post with the original essay and reply by attaching the file with your comments. You can also type some notes to the author here if you want to offer other advice or encouragement. 

The entire process can be broken down like this:

1. Find a draft in the peer review discussion forum that doesn't already have two sets of comments from peers. Download the file or click the shared link.

2. Open the essay and make comments with suggestions using the insert comment feature or by typing in a different color. Save the essay with your comments using a different file name. Note: if you're working with a shared link do not change their text. 

3. Go back to the original location where you found the essay. Reply to the post and/or attach your file with comments. Repeat steps 2 and 3, meaning you'll reply to two drafts total.  

This assignment can be challenging the first time we do it, so be patient, ask questions, and know that it'll be much more familiar for the next essay.

Editing and Revision, and Proofreading, Oh My! 

Let me take a quick second to review some terminology you'll need for this class and for other classes you take; knowing these terms also means you'll separate the different tasks and do each one rather than lumping them all together, something that can improve the quality of your final drafts. 

Editing

As the UNC Writing Center explains, "Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument." That means you're looking at big stuff, including decisions to add, move, or cut to make the essay more effective. 

Revision

In contrast, the UNC Writing Center states that revision "literally means to 'see again,' to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose." As they explain it, this means asking a) whether what you're saying is necessary, b) whether it says what you really meant to say, and c) whether a reader will understand you. This has some overlap with editing, but it happens later in the process--closer to when the assignment is due.

Proofreading

The UNC Writing Center explains that the last stage, the one after you've finished editing and revision, is proof reading. They state that this means "focusing on surface errors such as misspellings and mistakes in grammar and punctuation." The reason this comes last is because it's not as important as getting the argument in good shape. Also, it's a bit of a waste to focus on fixing the small grammar stuff if there are other big issues that still need to be worked out. 

The bottom line: make sure you're doing all three of these and spreading them across the writing process to be sure you submit your best work. 

A Quick Reminder about Plagiarism

I suspect by this point in college you have a sense of what it means to plagiarize. But beyond the statements contained on your course syllabus, or the consequences explained in the college catalog, it might be helpful if I explain what it looks like from a professor's point of view. Before I do that, I want to be clear: plagiarism is not common, and I don't start with the assumption that it's happening; instead, I often find myself really let down when I discover something isn't right. 

Most of the time the way a professor might suspect plagiarism is that the writing doesn't feel like the writing they've seen from the student before. Or if professors have created unique assignments, the more common indication is that something required is missing. But on top of this, professors also have access to tools like Turnitin that check an essay against a huge database of student submissions across the world and the entire internet by searching for portions of the work in question. Even without Turnitin, professors are able to take a line from an essay that seems off and paste it into Google; if someone plagiarizing found the essay using Google, then there's a very good chance that the professor can find it too. 

Another common example of plagiarism would be using generative AI (like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Meta AI, Snap AI, etc.) to create your assignment and copy/pasting it as your own work. That being said, most of us use those same tools to get ideas, get feedback on something we've written, or even to ask for grammar editing. In general, if you use any of these tools (including Grammarly to create content) you have to explain how you used in the Process Portfolio assignment. That kind of transparency is how we avoid issues with academic dishonesty that could cause you to receive a 0 for the assignment (see our syllabus for more details). 

So how can students work to avoid plagiarism? The first way is to trust that doing your own work, even if it's not perfect, is going to get a better grade than something that's been plagiarized. This should be pretty obvious when you see that in our class a plagiarized essay gets 0 points while an essay that is in pretty rough shape but shows some good work might get 60/100 points (or even better). Another way is to do your best to start assignments early and reach out if you have questions or feel stuck; in fact, research suggests that most cases of plagiarism are caused by students feeling overwhelmed and unsupported with assignments. And if you're in doubt or unsure if something might be plagiarism, like using an essay you wrote for another class, talk to your professor before you submit the work in question. 

With all of this in mind, I hope you'll feel confident when you click submit that you're doing the right thing. 

Essay #1 and Process Portfolio Submission

Remember, there are two assignments due by midnight on Sunday, October 6th. One will be shared from Word or Google Docs with "Can Edit" or "Editor" access. The other will be submitted by typing your answers in a textbox on Canvas in the Assignments page. 

Essay #1

When you've finished working on your Essay #1 and are ready to turn it in, follow these steps (also shown in this week's walkthrough video at the top of the page):

1. Find your essay in Word or Google Docs. 

2. Click the "Share" button at the top-right of your screen. Enter your professor's email address (jbreitenfeldt@rcc.mass.edu) and change the permissions to "Can Edit" or "Editor" to make sure I'm able to offer comments.  

3. Your professor will reply within 24-48 hours to let you know your essay has been received; if you don't receive confirmation make sure you follow up to get the assignment submitted. Note: if no assignment is received you'll also be able to see a 0 in the Canvas gradebook; just know that late work is still accepted until the last day of class. 

If you have a problem sharing your essay you should email your professor to talk about how you can submit the assignment. 

When the essay gets graded (usually 1-3 weeks) you'll get an email to let you know your work has been returned. This will also let you see the essay with my very detailed comments and the scoring rubric with specific points and additional notes to explain scores.  I recommend reviewing both so that you can have personalized advice for improving your writing before the next essay is due.

Process Portfolio I

Hopefully you kept track of the Process Portfolio assignment (something introduced in Week 2 and in the course syllabus). It requires you to answer four questions about your writing process for this essay using a textbox in Canvas.

This might all sound like a lot on top of completing your essay, but it should be mostly explaining the things you're already doing with enough detail. Moreover, it's designed to help your grade. For each of the four required questions you get 6.25 points just for a complete and thoughtful answer; giving some time and attention to all four parts would be 25/25 (100%) for this assignment, and there aren't many assignments where 100% can be expected. And on top of that, you're not graded here for your grammar or anything else; it's just how much you say to answer the question. We'll do this for all four essay assignments and together they're worth 10% of your total course grade. So do your best for this round and make sure you keep track of the process again on the next essay. 

Finally, remember that late work will be accepted until the last day of class. As the syllabus explains, there is no late work deduction this semester. The key is to remember that missing an assignment due date does not mean you should stop working; your goal should just be to submit the assignment as soon as possible so you don't fall further behind. Your professor can help. 

Key Takeaways

• Being successful with academic writing requires keeping track of small details even when it's hard to see that they matter; using a checklist can help make that more manageable until you form your own best practices and effective habits  

• Any time we can't know for sure who our readers will be (hint: it's not your professor or people in this class) we have to avoid you/your (aka second person) since it can cause otherwise interested audiences to feel like they aren't the intended audience

• Commas, capitalization, and subject-verb agreement (as well as verb tense) are the most common grammar/mechanics errors in college application essays; reviewing the rules and checking for these specifically can help your essay stand out and be successful

• Peer review is your chance to get feedback from a real live audience and a chance for you to see how other writers approached the same task; when you help someone do better on the assignment, and when they help you do better on the assignment, everyone wins (but everyone has to put in the work)

• Editing, proofreading, and revision are different tasks. Knowing that they're different, and spending some time on each one, is part of how we improve as writers

Reading Assignments

Essay #1 Assignment Sheet

Essay #1 Scoring Rubric

For examples of successful college admissions essays:

"'When Normal Life Stopped’: College Essays Reflect a Turbulent Year" excerpts from The New York Times

"Chaos, Injustice, and Joy: The 2023 College Essays on Money" full essays from The New York Times

For Common Application essays:

"Essays that Worked" from Johns Hopkins University (acceptance rate = 12.8%)

"Essays that Worked" from Tufts University (acceptance rate: 14.6%)

"Essays that Worked!" from Connecticut College (Acceptance rate: 35.1%)

Note, there are not very many (if any) verified successful samples for the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship essay; if you decided to follow a model you find online make sure you check that the source is a credible and reliable place for information. Keep in mind, the essay style and approach is not different than the Common Application, so those samples are still relevant. 

Process Portfolio Assignment Sheet

"Revising Drafts" from the UNC Writing Center

"Editing and Proofreading" from the UNC Writing Center