Look through another’s eyes, English homework help

Look through another’s eyes.

When others tell you what they think about your paper, they are giving you feedback. As you read the feedback, you can see your writing through other people’s eyes. Their feedback may give you new ideas and make you aware of problems you can fix. In this lesson you will practice using feedback, and then you’ll begin to revise your draft.

Review the Research Paper Assignment Overview. You have completed your planning and drafting, and you are now ready to begin finalizing your paper.

Your teacher gave you feedback about your first draft. He or she may ask to have a conference with you to discuss your research paper. If you wish, you can request a conference with your teacher to clarify or expand upon the feedback.

The feedback your teacher gave you was based on experience and expertise. Return to the feedback that you received on your first draft. Reread it carefully. Make notes about it if you wish.

Feedback

Some feedback that you received may focus on specific passages.Other feedback may affect the writing of the paper as a whole. As you revise, look for the passages or structural aspects that the feedback refers to. Work to improve those elements.

Always be open-minded about feedback. A reader might give you unexpected insight into your writing, enabling you to dramatically improve your work. When you read a feedback suggestion, have a positive mind-set. If you disagree with the suggestion, don’t act rashly. Give yourself time to reflect calmly and you may change your mind.

Problems are fixable. Make notes of your ideas about how to implement the feedback. You might write your notes in your draft in the places where the problems show up.

Fixing Problems

Sometimes when you read an item of feedback, you may agree with the opinion but wonder how to fix the problem. Common problems include

• ineffective hook
• unclear thesis
• lack of support
• poor organization
• weak conclusion

Adding Support

The writer of the Model Research Paper made several revisions based on her teacher’s feedback.

One piece of feedback said that the supporting paragraphs (body)did not contain enough detailed evidence . The teacher recommended adding quotations from literary critics.

Read the first-draft version. Then read the detailed evidence the writer added to improve the paragraph.

First Draft

For Wordsworth, selfishness and unkindness go hand-in-hand with the growth of industrial cities. He felt that the Industrial Revolution resulted not just in harm to the environment but in emotional and moral harm.

Additional Evidence

….Biographer Hunter Davies writes that Wordsworth “could see quite clearly the ravages created in family life by the Industrial Revolution and the new factories: the all-night shifts, the abuses of child and female labour, the dangers to health and morals and the breakdown in rural life as people fled from the country to the towns.”

Revising Language

The writer of the Model Research Paper received feedback saying that the language of the first draft was too informal. As a result, she deleted informal words and phrases and inserted more formal ones.

She used a dictionary and a thesaurus to help her make stronger word choices.

Read the first-draft version. Then read how the author changed it to be more formal with stronger word choices for the final draft.

Wordsworth doesn’t talk about industrialization in “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” but he knew about it. He saw it when he walked along the Wye.

Although Wordsworth does not directly mention industrialization in “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” he was surely aware of the influence of that social change as he walked along the banks.

Check Your Revisions

As you revise, reread the portion of the feedback that refers to the part of the paper you are currently revising.

After you revise that part of your paper, read your revision. Does it respond to the feedback? Does it solve the problem? If your answers to those two questions are “yes,” you’re using the feedback effectively.

If you would like additonal feedback, give your mentor the Mentor Checklist for Revising. Ask your mentor to read your research paper and make comments on the checklist. Your mentor’s feedback is likely to be more like that of a typical reader than that of a teacher.As a result, you’ll have a different perspective from which to evaluate your work.

Now you will begin revising your research paper. Refer to the rubric in your Research Paper Assignment Overview. Remember that the rubric will be used to grade the final draft.

Read the tips for getting started on revising. Use the Student Guide to focus your thoughts.

Revising Tips

Here are some tips for revising a research paper:

• Copy and paste your entire draft into a new document or use the Save As feature to save the document under a new name.Keep the old first draft the way it was. Make your revisions on the new document. That way, you can compare the drafts.
• Pace yourself. Don’t rush and don’t delay.
• You can keep revising the same passage until you are satisfied with it.
• Remember that the important thing is to improve your paper. If a change doesn’t improve the paper, you might want to undo it.

Now, start revising.