Revision Strategies
Welcome to my revision page! This is where I will be displaying the progress of my work and the revised portions of my essay. I explain why and how I came about the revisions, which are mainly from the Professor or my peers during peer review. These revisions are for my Literature Review and Advocacy Essay.
Literature Review
The revision that I will be doing is based off of my Literature Review essay. This essay is based off of many other pieces of scientific research studies that I have found on elephant cognition. It is, in short, a review of all the sources I found and how they all work to emphasize a certain topic. The topic that I had chosen to research for the essay was elephant cognition and I used a total of 3 major sources to solidify the idea that elephants are conscious animals, which would help in my Advocacy Project. The Literature Review is set up in a certain order that would effectively draw in the audience to be more interested and connected to the research cases. I do an assessment whether the studies are effective or useful to proving that elephants are aware of their surroundings, have the ability to learn, and memorize. The essay also works to raise philosophical questions that would get the reader thinking about certain problems that animal are facing, such as animal cruelty or ethical treatments. Click here to read my whole Literature Essay. on elephant cognition.
Introduction Paragraph
A major part of my essay that I had revised was my introduction paragraph. I chose to revise this because I had initially made a broad assumption about human behavior and Professor McClure gave me tips that I shouldn't do that because sometimes the assumption is not always true. Had I left the broad claim in, it would have made me less of a credible and reliable writer, since I would have no evidence for it.
Study Titles
One of the revisions I had decided to do on my Literature Essay was adding in the titles of my research cases. I had chose to revise this part of my essay because a peer had pointed out that I forgot to add them in and it is a vital part of my essay to include the titles. It would allow the readers to clearly get an idea of what I am about to review and allows them to establish that it is a research article and not a random website.
Introduction Sentences
One of the last things I chose to revise was my topic sentence of a paragraph. I had received a comment mentioning that the sentence was repetitive to a previous introduction sentence that I had written. When I wrote the first draft, I had not noticed that I had previously used the phrase "when the elephants were presented with" and I used it twice in close proximity to each other. This repetition would negatively affect my essay if I left it in because it would make me sound like I lack variation in my vocabulary and it would sound redundant, therefore, lowering my credibility.
Advocacy Project Essay
The revisions that I will be presenting in this section are based off of my Advocacy Project Essays. This is an essay that is a combination of the Literature Review and an addition of the problems the African Elephant species faces and the solutions that have been implemented to save the endangered species. In this project, I was required to find an additional 3 sources on issues that my species faced and them connect it to the LR essay. By starting off with the LR essay that discussed cognition and then presenting the urging issues for elephant poaching, the readers can further understand why we must take action to conserve the animals. This project also brings up philosophical questions about the ethical treatment of animals and how they can also feel suffering like humans do. The intent of the literary piece is to convince the readers that we must take action against elephant poaching and for humans to do better. Click here to read the entire Advocacy Essay and to learn more about elephant poaching.
Additional Detail
For one of my AP revisions, I chose to add more detail at the end of my paragraph regarding the human-animal interactions that I had previously referred to. I had received some feedback on my peer review that I could elaborate more on what I was referring to and by doing so, I felt like my writing is more clear and informative. When I added more information, I also decided to add another counterargument. By doing so, this strengthens my own argument that elephants need to be conserved because I present a different point of view and I acknowledge the other side, but then I proceed to refute that view with another argument of my own.
Wording and Clarifying
In this section of the revision, I chose to change the way I worded my sentence on additional issues that elephants face., It allows for a clearer flow throughout my essay. Before the revision, I felt like the paragraph was slightly chaotic because it jumped from the topic of elephant captivity to the topic of elephant testing. It then would go back to elephants being crammed in small spaces. By revising the paragraph, it began with discussing elephant captivity and then flowed into elephant testing.
Closing Paragraphs
One of the many other revisions I made to my AP essay was adding another closing sentence to the final paragraph of my solutions section. With the help of my peers, they pointed out how the paragraph had ended abruptly and it felt as if there was still more to be said. To fix this issue and to improve my essay, I chose to add more specific solutions that people can do to help conserve elephants and then ended broadly, that way my essay begins broad, becomes more specific, then ends broad again.
Important Moments
In this section of the page, I will be presenting important moments within the process of my writing for both the Literature Review and the Advocacy Project Essay. Below displays a series of images that are examples of the work conducted throughout this Spring Quarter, leading up to the final drafts of my essays. Not only have these moments proved crucial to the completed projects, but they also provided me with lessons that I can put forth in my future writing endeavors.
The image displayed is a McGraw Hill Connect assignment that led to my inspiration to discuss issues relating to elephants. When the class was first assigned this annotated and close reading, I initially was unaware of how intelligent the elephant species were. It was this assignment that sparked my interest in writing about elephant cognition, intelligence, and eventually the issues on poaching. Without completing this assignment, I would have chosen another animal to discuss for the Literature Essay and Advocacy Project. I would have also been ignorant to issues regarding elephant poaching, captivity, and most importantly, their endangerment. I feel really grateful to have resonated with this assignment and it forced me to reflect on my past actions that unintentionally supported the captivity of elephants.
On the right is a screenshot of the introduction paragraph of my Advocacy Essay (which you can find the finished product under the Advocacy Project tab). I felt like the introduction paragraph was an important moment in my writing because it highlights the inner conflict I had while developing my essay. I chose to include an anecdote that portrayed my mistakes and how I have now grown to be more aware of certain issues regarding animal science, ethics, and research. I also felt that including a personal anecdote and showing how I have now become educated, will encourage the audience to reflect on their personal experiences.
The two images on the left are one of my discussion posts for the Writing 39C course and a paragraph from my AP essay. The topic that was assigned for the discussion post was an animal's ability to feel suffering, just as humans feel suffering. This was an important moment in my writing progress and research because the sources, provided for the discussion post, proved useful for the AP essay when discussing the ethical treatment of elephants. The discussion post also enlightened me on the term speciesism and how that contributes to the abuse humans inflict on animals. Without the discussion post, I feel that my argument would not be as strong as it is. As a result, I was able to incorporate the sources into my own writing and establish some sort of influence on the readers.
Peer Review
In this section, there will be images of peer review activities that were completed throughout the Literature Review (LR) and Advocacy Project (AP). 2 of the images will show comments that I made on my peers' assignments and 2 other images will show advice that they gave on my writing. Peer reviews were done on the McGraw Hill Connect platform where we uploaded draft of our LR, the first part of the AP essay, and the final draft of our AP. During these activities, each student would upload their own work and review 2 other students' literary pieces. We would give advice on improvements and comments to encourage the writers. This activity was intended to help our peers and ourselves recognize revisions that can be made throughout our writing. It is a learning experience for both parties.
Comments I Gave
This comment was made for the LR Review and AP Part 1 Peer Review. The specific prompt of this annotation was to highlight where the writer can improve the section on the issues their species face to make the writing and argument more effective. My annotation was a suggestion to the writer that would help them establish a stronger influence within their writing and a more authoritative presence. By advising the writer to connect the studies to the philosophical question, it could help their credibility and provide a clearer connection between the intent of the research cases and the issues.
This comment was made on another peer's LR Review and AP Part 1 Review assignment. The prompt of this annotation is the same as the one above, which is how they could improve their development of the issue, regarding their species. This certain essay presented an issue that was slightly off-topic from the AP essay prompt because the source they used did not highlight a problem that the species was facing. The source they provided did not contribute to the advocacy of their animal and I believed that adding the comments would guide them to reconsider the purpose of that source.
Comments I Recieved
Here is an example of a comment that I received from a peer that advised me to revise the way I worded my sentence. This comment helped me with a revision that I displayed above (Wording and Clarification). If they had not pointed out the sentence, it would have sounded very unorganized and difficult to follow along. As you can see, I jumped between two different topics, making it slightly hard to keep up with. My peer's advice allowed me to revise the sentence and add more detail to make the problems clearer.
The comment below was also on my final draft of the AP essay. I took this comment into consideration and further revised my work, which can be seen on this page, under the Closing Paragraphs header. Before I went back and edited the essay, it is clear that I ended the AP abruptly and there seemed to be no closing sentence or conclusion. These peer review activities really helped me notice what I need to work on for my future writing assignments. With the help of my peer's advice, I added more detail at the end of the essay to close it off and made it sound less choppy.
