“Shitty First Drafts” was humorous to read, but I found it was some what accurate as well. Nothing offended me in the short essay, I think it is a good way to just get all of your ideas out and onto paper. It doesn’t matter how organized or well thought out your ideas are for your free draft. I think once your get all of your ideas and arguments written down, then you can begin to edit your essay and start organizing and putting everything towards a final draft. I found it surprising and also interesting that she did this sort of draft for the magazine she worked for.
My goals for revising my free draft is to shorten up some of my quotes, and instead of stating the opinion of the EA’s or Kaphar, to state more of my own opinions and go deeper with them. For my goal of stating my own opinion more I am going to take out some of my summaries of what their opinions are and expand on some of the ideas I already have, but just add more to my ideas. To shorten some of my quotes I am going to instead of quoting what was said I will just summarize what the idea is and use that in my essay. I see my biggest challenge being to state my opinions more because I am so used to just writing about what others opinions are and trying to write the “right” answer, but in this case the “right” answer is my own opinion. I plan to use all of the peer reviews I have received as resources and if I cannot figure something out on my own I will then ask them in person or ask Professor Emerson, and if all of that does not work I can go to SASC.
I also found Lammott’s essay to be quite entertaining. I agree that writing a free draft is a good way to just get your thoughts down and not worry about the writing. I think your goal of shortening your quotes is a good idea but I don’t think you should resort to summarizing the ideas instead of using quotes. The impact of the quote might get lost in paraphrasing. I suggest using ellipses to take unnecessary parts of the quote out instead of removing the quote completely. Secondly, I like that you are going to add more of your ideas and opinions into your essay. Readers want to hear what you think. However, you need to make sure they have context so don’t eliminate Kaphar’s and the EA’s opinions. Instead, shorten them but leave enough so that the reader knows what you are talking about. Lastly, I think your plan for getting help is solid. It did not occur to me to go to SASC for help until I read your post. I might try that as well. Overall, I like your plan for revision.
I think your plan to revise your draft is beneficial. It is important to have your opinion clear in the essay as well as support from the essays we had read. As the essay is opinion based, you are 100% correct that there is no “right answer”. I too have always been writing essays in high school having the idea that there is a “right answer”, yet this essay is completely different. As long as you explain your own thoughts and interpretations, you should be fine. This plan sounds doable for creating your final draft.
It was an enjoyable read. I can get behind more texts that have at least a little humour behind them. Also, you are right when it comes to just getting the ideas onto the paper. I can say that is a personal struggle of mine. If you don’t know the perfect thing to say to start that is fine. Just get the ideas that you have down now and build and change as you go on.
As for your plan, I can’t see anything else to add that. You took some of the comments that peers made to heart and getting help from an outside source such as SASC. As I told another classmate, just make sure you schedule a block of time to dedicate to this paper and you will come out golden. Good luck!