Dear Roberta,

Coming into college I thought that I was a pretty decent writer. I really did not
enjoy writing at all through my childhood but when I was denied admission to UCSB and
spent weeks crafting my appeal letter, which led to my eventual acceptance, I found a
new love for this art form. After this though, due to my majors heavy emphasis on math
and science, I did not write much of anything for over a year and a half and all of my
writing skills slowly faded away. This became apparent to me when I did not receive the
grades I wanted on the first two writing projects, which is the reason I choose to revise
these specific pieces. After carefully reading through your comments and skimming back
through some of the assigned readings from the quarter, I knew that when revising my
paper I needed to focus on topic sentences, overall flow and clarity, and the continued
argument to the thesis statements throughout the entirety of the pieces.
For writing project one I switched a good amount of the paragraphs around and
restructured my paper to make a more clear analysis of the two genres with respect to
each other. Initially writing this paper I did research on the Slate Magazine article for
PB1. So I started to write my paper with research conducted only on this genre without
looking at any Facebook posts. I wrote all of my paragraphs pertaining to magazine
articles then conducted research after on Facebook posts, where I eventually found
Benjamin Watsons post. I then did all of my writing pertaining to the genre of Facebook,
crafting my thesis statement and introduction along with the conclusion after. This left
my paper in the form of AAABBB. This created a lack of fluidity as the discussion of one
genre abruptly switched over to another, along with poor cross analysis. In the revision
process I made sure to relate the similarities of each genre to each other while still

comparing their differences. Almost all of the paragraphs positions in relation to each
other were altered, which when done eliminated any abrupt changes in discussion and
created a much better flow. This integration of both genres throughout the piece
cohesively flows and allows the reader to evaluate these genres better in relation to each
other.
In revising this paper I also made sure that all of my points better aligned with the
thesis statement, done so by creating better introductory statements that related the
summary of the paragraph back to the thesis. Along with a poor flow, writing before I had
all of the research done also hurt my paper because I was writing without a clear thesis
statement, which lead to some confusion in the points that I was trying to make in certain
paragraphs. One of the most notable of these was my paragraph regarding magazine
citations, which essentially stated that magazines cite sources that create the perception
that they were trying to achieve in that piece. The problem was that my thesis stated that
magazine articles were more credible pieces that established credibility through these
citations. This lead the reader to be confused when they were initially told that magazine
articles are authenticated through citations and then later told that the citations used are
biased to the stance of the author of the magazine article. After I realized this, thanks to
your guidance, the paragraph was altered to speak of how these citations present truths
that are not always found in the media. This was also tied in to why this is a better source
for older audience members, which I feel was a good route to take because it is an
element from the prompt that I never discussed. To make sure that this paragraph and all
of the others made key points to the thesis statement I made sure that every introductory
and concluding sentence summarized the information of the paragraph while relating it

back to the thesis statement. This practice of strong introductory and concluding
sentences made my argument of the thesis statement solid throughout work as every time
the reader was introduced new information or done reading a solid block of information it
was related back to the central argument.
In my Writing Project 2 I also struggled with creating arguments central to my
thesis statement, which I fixed by making sure that all information shared was indicative
of Physiology, in comparison to law, being a more effective discipline in the discussion of
marijuana, focusing on topic sentences as well. I unfortunately was a somewhat stubborn
student and I did not realize even in the second writing project that strong topic sentences
are the key to creating strong arguments throughout any paper. So in my revisions for this
paper I also worked on relating all of the information in a paragraph back to the thesis
statement through strong topic sentences. I also struggled with this project to fully grasp
the prompt, which was evident in my paper when both academic disciplines positive
attributes, regarding the discussion of marijuana, were outlined in great detail. Despite
my thesis statement making a stance that Physiology is better than Law in this particular
discipline, I continued to praise both, as it was only in the final paragraph where I truly
made my argument that Physiology is the better of the two. This came from my prior
knowledge where I thought an argument only had to be made at the end of a piece, which
I learned is quite false; when writing in a paper but not making a specific stance relating
to the thesis statement, words are wasted and simple summaries are made that lack true
intellectual analysis and content. With this in mind, for the revisions I made sure to only
argue the valid practices of Physiology and worked more towards arguing why practices
of Law in regards to marijuana are less effective. This use of strong topic sentences,

along with a thorough analysis of why Physiology is better than Law when discussing
marijuana, made my paper much more intriguing and a stronger piece.
In the revisions of both Writing Project 1 and 2 I worked to make sure that my
verbs and subjects agreed with each other as well as increased clarity by using the
given-before-new principle. When reading over my writing projects there were portions
of the text that seemed to not make a completely clear statement, but I could not figure
out what was wrong. After spending some time with you looking over my projects it
became clear that in some cases I was attributing actions to subjects that could not
account for these actions in a logical manner. For instance I would state something like
Magazine articles establish credibility through their grammatical skill and broad
vocabulary. This though does not make sense because a magazine article can not have
grammatical skill and a broad vocabulary. I then changed this statement to say, Authors
of magazine articles establish credibility through their grammatical skill and broad
vocabulary. This way the same point is made but the authors of magazine articles, who
do possess grammatical skill and broad vocabulary, are the subjects of the sentence,
creating much more clarity for the reader. I also worked to use the given-before-new
concept to establish clarity. I read about this concept for our group assignment when
looking over Joseph Williams Style. This concept to myself is that as a writer you want
to focus on starting sentences with information that the audience has already read and
then once this old information is established you can speak to the new information you
wish to discuss. The implementation of this style into my writing made things much more
clear because it does not allow for any jumps in subject material so the reader can clearly
see how you as a writer have gone from point A to point B. The use of given-before-

new and making sure that the subject in a sentence is logically capable of completing the
verb associated made my writing projects much clearer for the reader to understand.
Proceeding forward in my academic career, whenever I am writing I now will
always focus on crafting strong topic sentences that relate my argument back to the thesis
statement. I also will always work to make sure that my paragraphs are continuing the
argument that is made in the thesis statement, making sure to always ask the question so
what. I plan to continue studying ways to writer clearer while still possessing natural
flow. I feel that after taking this class I am much more prepared to tackle some of the
challenges that life has ahead of me with the literary tools I have learned this quarter, so
for that I thank you.
Sincerely,
Jim Martin