I’ll admit that I’m often one of those people who sees revising an unfamiliar individual’s paper tedious.  The mentality of “get in and get out” was what I always had going into each phase of revision.  Maybe that’s probably because no one ever really gave me feedback that made me really think back on my writing and I felt obligated to return the favor, but this piece made me really rethink my whole way of going about this.

Few words there and few words here would pretty much all you could get out of me, and I would think that’s fine because the teacher was satisfied.  Nobody ever told me what I was doing was wrong, so I never saw a need to change how I was doing things.  This piece showed me a new way of going about reading another person’s paper.  A lot of what it tells you to do conflicted with everything I’ve done in the past.   Like “Short and sweet” being often bad and commenting in full sentences weren’t enough, it even wants me to be more critical of my peer.  A first draft is when a writer is most vulnerable, so it would make sense that that is when they are most open to receiving critical feedback.  One’s thoughts on your paper might differ from what you might think, so having someone be able to point something out is valuable.  One thing I never really took into account was what exactly that person’s identity as a writer.  It’s nice to see that a lot of Jeremy’s response to Todd’s paper is what I always wanted to do, but never wanted to since the amount of effort required was too much for my liking.  If anything, this piece has shown me a new way to tackle the revising process, and for that, I am grateful.