Revising an essay is a process, and as I stated using the metaphor of evolution it is a process that takes a great deal of time. With an infinite amount of ways to make an essay better comes an infinite amount of ways to make it worse. In revising this essay I changed multiple grammatical errors, such as the use of italics for book titles. I also used Professor Mary Hays’ Expletive Constructions presentation in order to eliminate the expletive constructions that I had. Thirdly, I had one of my peers review my essay in order to gain a new perspective on it.
I learned that when I write I often expect my readers to be mentally on the same page as I am and forget to explain some of the things that clearly require explaining. As a result, in several sections of my essay I added explanations to unclear points that I made. For this essay in particular, through revision I dug deeper into my own opinion on fiction and on how relevant and helpful it can be. I learned about myself and about my own opinion just by writing it down. Writing and revising is a great way for people to figure out there own values and own opinions, which I feel is so important in a world where we are often encouraged to focus on other things, may that be business or biology or computer science. I have enjoyed the opportunity to focus on myself and my own original thoughts through the process of writing.