Outcome 1:
Between my first and final draft of my second paper on identity, I have made many changes. My first draft was only the introduction of the paper. The introductory paragraphs accomplished the majority of the “cone” of the paper. However, I organized it so that it begins with background, then discusses the specific question at hand “what makes one’s identity?”, and then moves to my thesis. I removed parts like “ biological factors or characteristics such as race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and age can have a major impact on determining whether or not we have social, political and economic power” because it didn’t relate to my topic. I wasn’t going to talk about the biological factors and their impact on identity building in my argument thus, I removed it. This change improved my paper because the reader will have a better understanding of what the topic of my argument is. This also demonstrates that as a writer I have a clear idea of what I want to talk about in my paper and that I have a clear argument.
I added new body paragraphs to further explain my argument and a conclusion paragraph. Within each body paragraph, I used other authors’ arguments and writings as evidence to support my argument. To build my paragraphs, I started with topic sentences to introduce the idea of the paragraph that is built off of my thesis. Then, I introduced the authors and their arguments. I used quotes to summarize their arguments and to provide supporting evidence for my writing. This change improved my paper because it allowed me to build my own argument and provide other writers’ arguments.
Outcome 2:
Providing evidence is an important part of making an argument. For each paragraph, I introduced the author’s argument and summarized it. For example, when I used Anzaldua’s essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” as an example to support my idea of how institutions challenge us into becoming someone other than ourselves, I began with a summary of how Anzaldua talks about her childhood and struggles as a Chicana and the multi-languages she spoke. Then, I introduced a quote that shows how she struggles as a multilingual. With the quote being a piece of supporting evidence. After introducing the quote, I analyzed it to explain its significance and its relationship to the idea of the paragraph. For the paragraph to not be a summary paragraph and for it to help build my argument, I had to bring my voice into the analysis, “society claims to support diversity and individuality, however, when a person tries to express their identity through their culture and language, the dominant culture doesn’t accept it and tries to demolish that difference.” I analyzed Anzaluda’s story and how it was impacted by institutions to conclude my paragraph and thus, tying the paragraph back to my thesis. I used the same format to integrate another author’s writing, Roxane Gay, into my paper.
To demonstrate the relationship between ideas from two different writers and relate them to my argument in my paper, further down in my paper, I used both Gay’s and Anzaldua’s writings to explain the impact of representation in society and how it impacts identity. This is by using examples from both of their writings that show how representation has influenced them to make decisions in life. How Gay is afraid of calling herself a “feminist” because she fears misrepresentation. And how in contract, Anzaldua is looking for representation, for people like her to feel empowered. These two writers show different experiences with representation but combining their different experiences, as quotes and analyzing it connects it to my thesis.
Outcome 5:
Using resources is helpful to support my argument, however, giving credit to the source is important. In my paper, I used Anzaldua’s and Gay’s writings as a source. When I used quotes from their writings, I included the last name and the page number in parenthesis. For example, for quotes from Anzaldua’s writing, I placed “(Anzaldua, 43)” at the end of the quote. I used the same format for quotes from Gay’s writing. There were some embedded quotations, such as “black feminists are said to be ‘playing the race card’”, this is an area for continued development for better ways to introduce and explicit the quotes. I also included works cited page, however, this is another area for me to continue to improve on.
Outcome 6:
Personally writing a well-formatted sentence can be challenging. I tend to use very basic and simple language when writing, and writing requires broader vocabulary knowledge to be able to express things creatively. So, in this paper, I tried to use words I don’t normally use. Another challenge I have is punctuation placement. Most of the time I don’t place commas in the right place and that leads to long run-on sentences. In this paper, I tried to be aware of the placement of punctuations. I believe I have exhibited better sentence-level clarity in the following sentence, “in many cases, common interests and shared ideologies are formed and internalized throughout someone’s life from family, school, organizations, government, etc.” I chose this sentence, to show my word choice and placement of commas that separate the different institutions.
