LO: Demonstrate the ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision).

Over the course of the semester my approach to revision has grown dramatically; from doing just a first draft and final to pre-writing, first draft, peer review, and then final draft. I felt as though the development of my recursive process aided me in forming and finalizing my claims. Specifically within the process of revision for my big data paper I focused on sentence variety or, as Nancy Sommers says in “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.”, “rewording… to avoid lexical repetition” (Sommers). My run on sentences or overuse of complex sentences had been pointed out in previous papers and drafts which lead me to focus upon this in my revision. For example, in my introduction there is a sentence “The data collected by these objects is just one source of Big Data which is a complex, new idea that refers to the large volumes of data that is generated by people in a variety of ways and can be analyzed and used in just as many ways.”(Sanborn, 1) which was pointed out by a peer as wordy. So in my final draft I broke the sentence down into three separate sentences “This relatively new term refers to the unimaginably large masses of data generated in numerous ways from Google searches to Alexa, a virtual assistant made by Amazon, recordings. As many ways as big data can be collected it can be analyzed and used in just as many ways. From marketing to something as different as finding patterns in crime in a given area.” (Sanborn, 1). Not only did I create sentence variety and fix a run on sentence by breaking it up, but it also allowed me to go a little more in depth. This revision is what Sommers would refer to as a students revision process, not an experienced writers. My first drafts could be classified as short or underdeveloped, but this is because for me a first draft is all about simply getting my ideas on to paper; which I find the most difficult. Yet when you compare this first draft to my final one can see “substantial revision of drafts for content,” (Learning Objective 1). I would agree with Sommers that is my recursive process “in a second draft, I begin to see the structure of an argument and how all the various sub-arguments beneath the surface of the sentences are related.” (Sommers). I like the element of her philosophy on revision because although some may see my early recursive process as underdeveloped it is my way of forming my ideas. From this and feedback from peers, I am able to add in evidence and clarify claims in my final piece.