Peer Review for Mariana Chacon

For my second peer review for the course final, I will be reviewing a standard college essay written by Mariana from section 4.

"Untitled" by Mariana Chacon

I decided to look at the content in Mariana's project and make a suggestion about how she could better the information presented in her essay.

I think I helped Mariana because  I felt like her essay was kind of all over the place. She skipped from topic to topic, and I suggested that she pick one or two topics specifically and focus on them rather than trying to address everything that happened. I think this will help to make her essay more clear.

Mariana's essay was good but I think that she could've used more concrete references to back up her claims. We talked a lot in class about how important credibility is, so I suggested that she use quotes and information from old blog posts to make her sound more credible. I think that if Mariana established her credibility a little bit more that it would make her essay better overall.

I really liked the honesty that showed in Mariana's essay. I think the way she uses her own voice to tell the story makes it a very authentic essay.

Peer Review for Erin McCabe

For my peer review of someone from my section (6) of English 109, I will be reviewing Erin's standard college essay.

"A Nostalgic Glance Back" by Erin McCabe

For Erin's project, I made a content suggestion. In other words, I made a suggestion about the information that was in her project as well as how effectively she establishes her credibility.

I think I helped Erin to make her project better by giving her feedback on how to better organize the content of her project. I kinda felt like she jumped around a lot with her project, but I was able to suggest that she try to stick to a timeline for her project. Overall, her content was there, I just felt like it could have been more organized.

This project is largely about reflection on previous projects, at least according to the project guides. We talked in lecture about how we were supposed to look out out motivation for doing certain things. I suggested also that Erin talk more about her motivation for all the things that she had to do and why that was important. 

The one thing I liked a lot about Erin's project is that her voice really came through in it. I know Erin and she's super funny and I felt like her essay really reflected that and I think that that made it really great to read overall.

Editorial Report 15B

In this post I will be comparing and contrasting my rough cut of the conclusion of my project with the more fine cut. 

Selection from Rough Cut

I went from never revising ever in my life to editing too much, and then learning to find a balance. This taught me how to be confident in my writing. The revision process is really all about learning to be confident in your work and to just put in time to make sure that what you’re doing is actually something that you like.

Overall, I’d say it was a learning year, but I feel like I learned a lot that will be valuable for the rest of my life. 

As I said before, college is all about learning. One of the biggest things you’ll learn in college is how to balance things. In my English 109 class, the biggest thing that I figured how to balance is how to revise but not to over-revise. I figured out how to be confident in my work without going crazy trying to be perfect. I learned how to be objective about my reviewing, and I learned how to take criticism from others.

Re-Edited Selection

My re-edited selection can be found here.

Author Response

• I found that for the most part I didn't change the content of the closing that I had written in my script. I found that my original content was very effective so I didn't feel that there was really a need to change anything.

• The form for this part of the project changed because I took it from just writing on a page to podcast format. Obviously this will be more effective for delivering content in the genre of the podcast. I think in the future I would like to add more background music. 

Editorial Report 15A

In this blog post I will compare and contrast between the rough cut and the revised versions of my course final project. The part that comes from my "Rough Cut" will be in the form of a script, where the new, revised version will be via Sound Cloud.

Selection from rough Cut

Hey listeners. In today’s podcast I’m going to be talking about my personal growth throughout my English 109 class this semester. Specifically, in the area of revision and editing.

(Introduction music)

The first year of college classes is all about learning. I mean, all of college is about learning, but I think that the first year is especially about learning things that aren’t necessarily academic. You might learn that you absolutely cannot live with someone up in your space all the time, or that you are actually the biggest procrastinator ever to walk the earth.

So imagine, your first year writing class where the topic of your writing is not some boring, hard-to-read book from at least 70 years ago.

Obviously this is a new experience. Really, high school didn’t prepare you at all for college writing. Your guidance counselor lied to you about your AP Lit classes. I mean sure you could write a 5 paragraph essay in 45 minutes, but could you look back at it and pick out every single thing that you did wrong and then make it better?

I learned very quickly that I sucked at revision. I learned that I was lazy when it came to my writing. But not only was I lazy, I was afraid to be held accountable for what I put down on paper. I wasn’t confident in my writing ability. This podcast today is about my revision transformation as I went from never-ever to passionate editor, and as a result, a much better writer, and someone who was proud of their work.

Re-Edited Selection

My re-edited version can be found here.

Author Response

• The content of my project changed because I added in some things like sound effects and transitions. I think that these additions to the content will make my project more entertaining overall.

• The form changed when I re-edited it because I ended up adding in more of the genre conventions, including a short introduction that says what the podcast is about and a transition into the podcast itself. I think this presents the content more effectively because it helps the podcast stick to the genre conventions as well as makes it more entertaining. 

Open Post to Peer Reviewers

In this blog post I will talk about the rough cut of my Course Final podcast. The full podcast can be listened to here.

• Firstly, I would like all my listeners to know that this is my full script for this project, but it is no way a complete podcast. For starters, I have yet to add in music, transitions, or sound effects. As for sound effects, I'm not sure exactly what I would like to do yet, but any advice on that would be great.

• I think the biggest thing about my podcast right now is that it's pretty long and I'm not completely sure that it keeps the listener's attention. I was sort of wondering if any of the information didn't seem relevant or if the listener thinks that it would become more interesting with sound effects etc., which I plan on adding early tomorrow morning.

• I think the strongest part of my project right now is the tone that I have. I feel like this podcast really captures my own voice and it sort of allows the audience to see things more from my perspective. I guess what I would like to know if my voice is too informal, and if so is there anything I can do to make it better.

Peer Review for Jianna LoCricchio

For my second peer review for deadline 14, I decided to peer review someone from section 4.

Production Schedule by Jianna LoCricchio

For this peer review, I decided to comment on Jianna's production schedule for her final project.

Jianna is writing a standard college essay which, not unlike other types of writing, can be something that might be easier to write in a quiet place. She talked about just writing it in her room on her bed, but I suggested that she go to the library or some other quiet place where she won't get distracted or tempted to take a nap (because I would). If Jianna doesn't mind noise then she can just ignore my opinion.

The genre conventions of the standard college essay mean that all of it is written out in paragraph form in a more formal way than the QRG. Because of the fact that it's formally written out, I suggested to Jianna that she set aside some time just to read through what she's written. Not a formal revision or anything, but it helped me when I was writing just to frequently read what I had put down on paper.

One thing that I liked about Jianna's schedule was that she had thought about almost everything. Her schedule was super detailed, giving times, places, and alternate times and places just in case the first case didn't work out. 

Peer Review Elizabeth Hernandez

For the first phase of peer review for this project, I will be looking at the production schedule of one of my peers in my section of english 109H.

Production Schedule by Elizabeth Hernandez

For this peer review I just did my best to take a look at Elizabeth's production schedule and see if I could give her any advice on executing her plan of action.

I gave Elizabeth some advice on how to best make sure that she had time to complete all aspects of the QRG, because as I found out, the QRG is definitely not the easiest genre to master. I think that this will help her in the long run. It's definitely some advice that I wish I had gotten before I started to produce my QRG.

Instead of incorporating course materials and stuff into my peer review, I thought it would be better to incorporate some of my own past experiences about the course materials related to the QRG into my peer review. I suggested that she look at the other examples, because peer examples of QRGs are definitely something that would've helped me when I was writing my own QRG for project 1.

One thing that I really admired about Elizabeth's work is that her schedule was so organized. It seemed very realistic and very honest, but it was also just generally aesthetically pleasing.