Learning outcome 5&6 was one of the techniques I did use throughout my years in high school. I learned a lot about MLA format, and this carried over a lot when writing different papers for different classes here at college. I have noticed a huge developmental change in my ability to use MLA format correctly and also making local revisions. In my papers at the beginning of this semester, I feel as though I was more focused on getting the word count and structure down and less focused on the format and small fixes I could’ve been making. Toward the end of the semester, and on paper 3, I found myself focusing more on citing this correctly, using the correct heading, and making the smaller more tedious local revisions to enhance my paper for my final draft to be read. Looking at my chosen work sample piece, final draft #3, I found myself able to really look back and say confidently that I have the idea of local revisions and MLA format down. In this paper, once my writing was completed, I went back to the top of my paper and thought of a title. To me this is easier to do at the end because I now know the larger message I am trying to get across and coming up with a unique title came a lot easier. I then created the header; this included and started with my full name, my professors name, the title of the course, and the date the project was due. I then added a page header which was located in the top right corner of each page and included my last name followed by the page number. The last page of my essay didn’t fill a full page, so I had to add a separate blank page and here I labeled it Works Cited. On this page were all of the sources I used throughout my paper, but something that I learned this semester was that they all had to be done in alphabetical order by last name. This is a key part to the MLA format. In addition to the work cited page, I also had to do intext citations. This means that anytime I took a direct quote or paraphrased from a chosen source I had to cite the person’s work. Therefore, at the end of the sentence in which I used the source I had to include parentheses which included either just their last name, or their last name and the page number in which the quote came from. In this essay, because we were using quotes from different narratives, we only included their last name between the parentheses. Here is an example of an in text citation that I used in one of my pervious papers; “William Vogt, parting sides with the Prophets argues that “if we continue taking more than the earth can give, the unavoidable results will be devastation on a global scale” (Mann 2).”. This shows who’s words I am using and what page of the article I found them on. This was a very important technique that was honed in on during this semester. We also focused a lot on local revisions. This is more based off of sentence structure, word flow, word choice, and so much more. Something that worked really well for me this year in regard to local revisions was once a finished a paragraph I’d go back and reread the paragraph aloud. I again did the same once I paper was completed. I then would have a friend read it aloud to me to make sure it sounded right when someone else was reading it. Once the due date arose, I took a few hours away from my paper and then later went back to it and reread it again to make sure I caught all the small grammatical errors I may have made. This helped me a lot with sentence structure. Sometimes I would find myself writing long run-on sentences that sounded good while I was writing but once read aloud, I found myself running out of breath. Rereading your pieces multiple times, and with different people allows it to be seen and heard in so many different perspectives. I noticed that from my first paper to my last paper my pieces developed and extraordinary amount. My sentences and word choice soon developed variety and added spark to my writing. I noticed a lot of repetition in my first paper and veered away from that by my third paper. Overall my papers sounded and felt more well done by my last piece than they did towards the beginning when they were more medium well (food pun). By making these improvements I began to be impressed with my own work and took pride in it. MLA format and local revisions are a huge part of any essay and I am confident to say I have learned a lot with these techniques.
