Part 1: The experience I had writing my first draft was very similar to what Anne Lamott described in “Shitty First Drafts”. I just had to get down all my thoughts and put them into words. At first, I had an introduction that was even longer than a page. Though I noticed that this helped me formulate my essay, which Lamott also emphasizes. Because I had everything I wanted to mention written down, all I had left to do was weed out the irrelevant information and then reorganize my thoughts to make my paper coherent. I have to admit, I was very surprised that Lamott discussed how the first draft does not need to be terrific. I always thought the rough draft had to somewhat resemble the finished product but it is a sign of relief to know that it is not the case. I can use my first draft as a stepping stone to organizing my thoughts on the way to a brilliant final paper.

Part 2- Revision Plan Strategy: My overall goal is to reorganize parts of my essay in order to make it more concise and coherent as a whole. In order to achieve this goal, I will have to follow a series of steps to ensure that my essay is the best it can possibly be.

First, I will need to re-read my essay and take into account comments my peers made on it. I need to look at places where they suggested I could cut parts out and where I could re-arrange my wording and sentences. Then I will need to read my essay out loud to myself. I have always found that hearing your essay orally enables you to notice spots that require revision. While reading, I will be marking places where I need to change the wording or sentence structure. I will also note places that could use a little more elaboration to make my ideas more clear. Once I have done this, I will let another person read my essay. I have always found that these insights from others have proved to be the most helpful tool in improving my papers. When I read through what I have written by myself, I often miss simple grammatical errors which others are able to immediately point out when reading through the same text. Furthermore, I have discovered that when discussing my writing with my peers, they are able to offer suggestions to improve my sentence structure to improve the clarity of the text as a whole. When I am writing and reading through my own text, everything seems to make sense because they are my own thoughts as words. Though others reviewing my paper do not know what was going through my head while I was writing and therefore are able to give recommendations on where I can place revisions that will make my paper more understandable to everyone.

Finally, I will take all of the suggestions and revisions I have made myself or been given and put them into my paper. Following all these steps will help me reach my goal of creating a concise and coherent paper. My biggest challenge in accomplishing this goal will be deciding which thoughts and claims to keep and which to cut out. In order to tackle this issue, I will make notes on how each relates to my thesis and if the thought is relevant, I will keep it. I will continue repeating this process until all my claims have a direct correlation with my argument.