Blog 5

Part 1:

For my group tutorial this week, I had my first experience with a group paper revision. We were split into two groups, read the papers of the other group, and then proceeded to complete a quick revision. After revising the other groups paper, we would explain what revisions we made and why we made them. The other group would do the same thing for our groups papers. I noticed that depending on what different people are majoring in, the writing styles vary drastically. For example, one of the students in the group had an entire paper that did nothing but explain a single math problem. It was an entirely different form of writing and it caught the rest of us off guard. Another student had a paper written in the form of a news paper interview. Having never had to work with papers in these different formats made it quite challenging to edit them.

Part 2:

"Distinctly different from the previous theory are the ideas of Homer. According to him, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione (Sacks 28). In Aphrodite and the Dione Myth, George Depue Hadzsits reviews the writings of Homer in an effort to determine how exactly the myth was created and believed. He concludes that Dione and Aphrodite must have been linked as  were mother and daughter because of the many qualities they have in common. Dione was said to have a “well recognized affiliation with moisture, including, rain, stream and sea” (Hadzsits 46). Therefore, it would seem only natural that its logical that she would be the mother of Aphrodite, who’s name means ‘foam-born,’ and is associated with the sea. " 

There weren't any portions of this chapter that I found hard to understand. I really liked how it talked about eliminating uncertainty from papers by making sure different hedge words couple well. The example given in the book used both seem and clear in a single sentence. Those are two conflicting ideas, and it causes confusion for the reader. If something is  "seems'' a certain way, then it isn't going to be clear. The word clear is a statement of fact, and therefore should only be used when its meaning is undeniable.  I also liked how the chapter focused on eliminating fluff from papers and using words that are more direct and evocative. Rather than using extremely angry, use livid or furious. It just makes a paper more interesting and to the point. 

Part 3:

The other group would do the same thing for our groups papers. I noticed that depending on what different people are majoring in areas of study, the writing styles vary drastically. For example, one of the students in the group had an entire paper that did nothing but explained a single math problem. It was an entirely different form of writing and it caught the rest of us off guard. Another student had a paper written in the form of a newspaper interview.

For my first revision, I decided to change the wording to make the sentence more to the point as well as shorten it. The second revision I did was for the same reason. The part of the sentence I eliminated added no significance to the sentence. It was basically just a bunch of filler words.