In my first draft, I think I just tried to get the words down on the page. I wrote anything and everything that came to mind, even if it didn’t flow or make a lot of sense. However, once I had all my ideas laid out for me in a disorganized fashion, I began my revision process. First, I created categories of certain themes I saw in my writing, in my case “my family” and “my community.” Then I got more detailed and split it into the pros and cons of these specific communities. I thought this was a good way to organize my ideas. 

After, I went through the essay and deleted repetitive ideas. With my writing more concise and my thoughts separated, I began to explain why I brought each example. With that information, I then only kept one example of messages that seemed to be repeating. I’ve realized, less is sometimes more. It’s not necessary to have five examples that all have the same meaning behind them.

My next step was to piece it all together and explain how I grew from each situation. I noticed that I had to go into more detail about how I grew from these experiences. My last step was to use the suggestion tool in google docs to delete any repetitive sentences or add in any ideas that I missed. With this tool, I could compare my new idea to my old idea to see if I really wanted to change my essay or if I was just trying to find something wrong. 

My last step was to go over my essay to find any grammatical errors. To do this, I read my paper aloud to see what didn’t “sound” right and to ensure I paid close attention to the words on my page. 

I think this process allowed me to develop my thoughts in a clear way without changing the meaning of what I wanted to convey.