The classmates who reviewed my first draft showed me the opinions I had not considered. One of them even posted some questions about my subjects true emotions when the police came in. Those questions helped me see how I could have answered those questions in my essay. I went back wrote more about Becky's emotion, and realized that my essay sounded better. It also allowed to see, if my classmates had to write on my topic, how they would organize their outline and what important aspects they would include. I never even considered some of the questions my peers were asking me and so I knew I needed to fix my outline to relay all the information better. I found that these people gave me hope to become a better writer. It’s as if they were saying, “Hey! This is great! If you did this too, it’d be even better!”

The classmates who reviewed my second project made me realize that I was still adding in irrelevant information into my essay. I was focusing too much on government involvement in the food industry, and not enough on the rhetorical appeals and how they were used in the Hungry Planet photo that I chose. To fix this, I went back and tried to expand the information I knew was important, and condense the information I knew I had went into too much detail about. I actually related to the advice that my Writing Fellow and my teacher gave me the best. I think this is because they knew exactly what would give me the best grade, and so they literally "spoon-fed" me tips on how to improve my writing. Telling me my paragraphs were "fluff" rather than saying "this paragraph could be improved" allowed me to see what I was actually doing wrong, instead of being confused about how to improve. This gave me confidence in myself on how to improve my work as well. I know, in the back of my mind, that I am capable of writing with purpose and focus. That's the issue though. This concept is in the back on my mind. I've learned to edit my essays with this key mistake in mind, that way I can fully see where I lose focus in each paragraph. 

My instructors and peers helped me with my writing by letting me know the mistakes they were first-hand seeing. This helped me because humans perceive different situation differently - this is why my twin and I still have different personalities even though we grew up side by side. They allowed me to see what was important to them as readers. My essays could sound better knowing exactly what my audience was looking for. I also found that sometimes I would attempt to do something (whether it be focusing or transitions or what not), and I would still get comments about lack of. I would realize that whatever I was doing was not successful and so I would go back to the drawing board. For example, my teacher said in my second project that my statements about ethos, pathos, and logos were not very clear. At first this confused me because I remember specifically writing information on all three of these appeals. However, when I actually read my descriptions, I realized that they were in fact not very well worded, and I could now see why this caused confusion to my readers. Without my teachers and peers comments, I do not think I would have observed as much as I did for my writing.