Self-Commentary: Step by Step

Successful writers do not simply produce texts out of thin air as if by magic; they go through a more or less specific process, moving step by step towards a finished document. As you probably know, good writing involves moving from an initial reading of the writing assignment or task to a series of drafts, some of which are shared with collaborators. (Of course you may go back and forth among these steps, returning to the original assignment, for example, when working on a later draft, or after hearing comments from a collaborator.)

Once the assignment is completed, successful writers spend at least some time reflecting on their writing, and on articulating what they feel are both their accomplishments and their problems. Good writers use these reflections to adjust and reformulate their methods for the next writing task. That's what you'll be doing with this next assignment.

In this sense the writing process is best thought of as a kind of circle or spiral rather than a straight line; the last stage of any writing process, your self-reflections, are in effect the first stage of your next writing task or assignment. In this course, you will formalize this last/first step by using a guided “self-commentary” at the end of each cycle of writing. When you answer the questions below, refer to anything you have written so far, from homework to rough and finished drafts to peer critiques. Jot down notes and observations in response to the six steps below; then rewrite these sections into a final draft with labeled sections, between 500 and 750 words in length. Be sure that the writing is as error free and polished as you can make it. Do not merely post a list of hasty answers to the questions below. Publish the final document as a link to your assignment index by the beginning of class on Wednesday, February 20.

Step One: summarize your assignments

Begin by going back to the original assignments--they’re on our web site, of course, and you might still have your hardcopy versions--and write a two or three sentence summary for each assignment of what you believe to its main purposes and goals. What writing tasks have you been asked to complete thus far, and what, in your view, were their main aims or goals? (Remember, this is not yet the time to do any evaluation; simply summarize succinctly.)

Step Two: summarize your texts

Next, write a two to four sentence summary of the texts you have written in response to the assignments you have been given so far. Which of the specific assignment aims or goals do you feel you accomplished in them? (Again, this is not yet the time to do any evaluation; simply summarize succinctly.)

Step Three: compare the assignments to your texts

Once you have completed Steps One and Two, write a summary describing how well you feel your texts met the main purposes and goals of the assignments you have been given thus far (this should end up to be about a paragraph in all). Begin by describing your own writing process as honestly as you can. Some of the questions you might ask and then answer include:

How do I begin a writing assignment? Do I start relatively early in the time frame given for completing a writing task, or relatively late?
Do I go through several early, revised drafts, or do I simply work on most of them once and then turn them in?
What kinds of editing methods do I practice (for example, checking for wordiness, spelling, organization, unnecessary use of passive voice)?
Which editing tasks seems to work best for me, and which do I feel are the most difficult?

In this section you can also include any comments you might have regarding your own process of learning the writing technology included in this course. Include some evaluative remarks on what you feel you did well, what you feel you did not do well, and what you therefore feel your goals for repeated improvement and success ought to be for the next assignments.

Step Five: review grammar and mechanics

Review selected samples of your texts to see if you can locate sentences that are unnecessarily passive, fragmentary, grammatically inaccurate, indirect, and so on. Identify and write down one to four sentences that have these problems; rewrite at least two sentences to illustrate how you would rewrite them in a revision of the text. For each original/revised sentence pair, provide an explanation for the revisions you make. (If you feel that you cannot find any grammatical problems of this sort, pick two especially long sentences and practice revising them in a more succinct way. Remember, you must still provide some explanation for the choices you made in your revised sentences.)

Step Six: review structure (including, where appropriate, thesis statements and transitions)

Assess the overall organization in specific ways. For instance, are the shifts between sentences and ideas clearly marked for the reader with transitional words and phrases? If your writing includes a thesis statement, write it down. Now review the text’s content again—does this thesis statement adequately state the text’s central point or message? Use this example to write briefly about what you feel are your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to composing thesis statements. Similarly, identify a few examples of transitional words, phrases, and/or sentences, some that you feel work well and some that you feel do not work so well. Write these down also, and analyze how effectively they bridge thoughts and ideas in your writing (note that you may have noted some of these same sentences in Step Five, which is okay).