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Jon Mattern
English 250 Section SE
Assignment #5
Samantha Futhey
December 11, 2015
W-Piece Reflection
Much like a work of art, a piece of writing is never really finished. Authors often write,
rewrite, and rewrite again until they are happy enough with their work to publish it. Such is also
the case with students and their essay work as they prepare a piece to turn into their teachers.
Revision is important to bring out the best of a thought a writer has through making thoughts and
points more clear, and adding, moving, and omitting elements when needed. The piece I decided
to revise for Assignment 5 was my Rhetorical Analysis paper titled Understanding Foroohars
View of The American Dream. In the paper, I discuss the writing style and argument structure
of Rana Foroohars work, What Ever Happened to Upward Mobility, which can be found in
our Everythings An Argument textbook on pages 901-907. My paper is structured so that the
evidence that I present to support my argument is given in the same order as it appears in the
original article. This argument-evidence pattern repeats throughout the whole paper in order to
keep things uniform and easy to follow. When I came to revise this paper, I focused on making
statements more clear and concise with these original goals in mind.
When beginning my revision, I initially went through and took out bits that either didnt
add anything to my paper, or were repeats of statements Id already made. My first major
deletion of content was the section I removed from the beginning of my second paragraph. The
second paragraph originally opened up with a couple sentences basically saying that Rana
Foroohars argument that the American Dream doesnt work anymore isnt a new one. I then go
on to talk about her first writing tactic in which she keeps her voice out of her paper. My reason

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for deleting the first portion was that it had nothing to do with the rest of paragraph. It didnt fit
anywhere else in the paper so I left it out completely. This way the introductory paragraph flows
a lot better into my first argument. Other bits removed were redundant and getting rid of them
were for the sake of conciseness, such as the sentence removed from my fourth paragraph, In
fact, her citations are all fairly similarly laid out. This sentence almost mirrors what I had said in
the previous statement and didnt add anything to the paper. There are other examples of
removed material and words in my revision.
On the other end of the spectrum, there were sections in which I changed and added
content in order to elaborate and clarify what I say. Right off the bat, I changed up my
introduction in order to better illustrate her intended audience. My thesis was also tweaked
slightly in order to show that I believed that Rana was successful in the way she presented her
arguments, as I previously hadnt taken a stance on whether or not she had done a good job.
Saying that she was successful gives my paper more purpose and direction, as now I am actually
trying to make a point, rather than just stating how Rana wrote her article. Another major
addition of content is found at the end of my second paragraph in which I introduce and explain
how and why Rana introduces her two major authoritative sources. This section that I added
gives clarification and answers questions the reader would have asked otherwise.
In addition to other material added in the paper, the final addition is found in the
conclusion paragraph. The added statement shows a section quoted from the last couple
sentences of Ranas article that acts as a visual metaphor for her thesis: Climbing the ladder
often means getting some support and a boost. After presenting this, I go on to talk about how
this is the only instance in which she uses her own voice and opinion in the article, and that what
she is saying her guides the audience to their own conclusion. My original statement here simply

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said, This is an interesting way to end her piece. There was no explanation as to why she said
it, why it was interesting, or anything. The section that I added was a better wrap up on the
discussion of Ranas article, and also a better wrap up to my paper in general. As far as the pieces
that I left unchanged besides the occasional grammatical error, I felt that the material I had
followed my argument-evidence format and adequately explained my points. For example, in
paragraph three when I discuss the way Foroohar gives statistics to supplement the points she
makes, I felt that what I had successfully explained what I was trying to say.
After making these changes and adding and deleting content, I feel that the result is a
much more organized paper that makes clear and well supported statements. I do not have a lot
of experience in revising papers that I am revisiting after a considerable amount of time, so this
experience has taught me a great deal about how the writing process is never over. There are
always ways to make a paper better, and the end result could quite possibly be something
completely different from what you started out with. I feel my revision is an improvement on my
rhetorical analysis, but still keeps the same feeling that my original paper did.