Ex Writer 38 | - ✏ Freelance Writer
Oct 22, 2015 | #1
Academic Writing Process
This writing course is designed as a portfolio course. The purpose of the portfolio is to allow you to capture both the process and the product of your writing. Because the portfolio will contain multiple drafts of several written projects, it will allow you - and your instructor - to see the processes you went through in order to reach the final writing product.
Throughout the course, you will complete weekly assignments that will be graded individually. During the final week of the course, you will submit a final portfolio, which is a compilation of the weekly assignments. For your final revision, you are encouraged to incorporate the feedback from your instructor for each of the assignments. In addition to instructor feedback, you will use the Smart thinking service and complete peer reviews, so you should also incorporate this feedback.Your final portfolio will include revisions (if necessary) of some of the weekly assignments, and will include the following components:
- Annotated Bibliography.
- Annotated Outline.
- First Draft.
- Global Peer Review.
- Revised Draft (global revisions).
- Local Peer Review.
- Revised Draft (local revisions).
- Smarthinking Submissions and Feedback (at least 3).
- Final Paper.
Project Objectives
To successfully complete this project, you will be expected to:
1. Apply information literacy skills.
2. Articulate writing tasks.
3. Implement a plan for research, writing, and revision.
4. Assess individual strengths and needs for enhancing writing skills.
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Peer Review: I
The topic you have selected on educational improvements and how leadership styles impact these seem very relevant today. However, I noticed that I had difficulty following your train of thought. I believe that a more effective Introduction section would have been useful in establishing the tone of the entire article, and as such, needs to incorporate certain background information like for instance (i) what is the "traditional leadership pyramid of one leader;" (ii) what criteria constitutes educational improvement; or (iii) why is there a need for educational improvement? I suggest that you revisit Category 3, particularly about the part on the unique perspective of the writer. I appreciate the thorough definitions that you have provided in the body of your paper. But then again, I would have preferred seeing your personal touch, your insights, rather than the definitions alone. I recommend you revisit Category 4, so that within a paragraph, there is an introduction of the main idea, evidence is provided to support the main idea followed by an analysis or your personal interpretation of the concept. I realize that you have a separate section on Evidence and I believe that it would have been effective if these pieces evidence directly go into the corresponding leadership style sections so that there is a systematic flow to your paper. I personally believe that educational improvements not only impact teachers but the students as well. Therefore, your article could perhaps be improved by undertaking even just a brief analysis about learners' perspectives with each leadership style. Although there are discussions about student outcomes, an analysis could have provided examples that would make each concept clearly understood. Moreover, as I reached the Conclusion portion of the paper, I realized that I still did not understand the leadership pyramid that you mentioned in the Introduction section, what its shortcomings are, and why it is beneficial for the leadership styles you have discussed to surpass this traditional method. I noticed that you have very good and consistent citation all throughout the paper. However, I did notice as well that there is an overuse of quotes. Aside from this, there are also certain statements of fact that need citations, such as, (i) Less work is assumed by an individual, if the total workload is shared; (ii) Co-principalship is like co-leadership; and (iii) The effectiveness of co-principalship indirectly impacts teaching though raising job satisfaction. Incidentally, an Abstract will also be helpful in establishing the tone and the objective of your paper. Finally, I also noticed too many commas so that they actually interrupted the train of thought of certain sentences, as well as missing quotation marks (at the end of the quote) as well as sentences that are too long.
Peer Review: II
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your paper. The Introduction is very good and is able to provide an adequate background to the topic. Perhaps it could be further improved by a thesis statement. Nevertheless, the Introduction also has a nice personal touch that provides your own perspective on the topic. I noticed that your paper is also well-structured so that the discussion follows a logical flow. I also noticed that the Body of the paper has paragraphs the present main ideas first, followed by evidence, which in turn, is followed by critical analysis. This closely adheres with Category 3. The paper provides a well-balanced discussion of the topic and is complete with evidence, critical analyses as well as the writer's personal perspective. There is also an effective Conclusion section that reiterates what have been discussed in the Body of the paper. I suggest, however, that you revisit Category 8, which refers to Documentation Style. For instance, I noticed in several instances in your paper that APA referencing is improperly used. There is a number of sentences that have page numbers enclosed in parentheses in the end, but there is no author cited within the sentence. Moreover, there were instances when the names of the authors were spelled incorrectly, such as Furegeson instead of Ferguson. I also noticed certain grammar mistakes, such as (i) which an individual prioritizes a set of events in their lives; (ii) Being able to balancing stress; (iii) there exist two preferences; and (iv) Furgeson et al, purposes a combination. It is also noticeable that there are commas where there should not be, and no commas where there should be. Finally, I suggest a review of Category 2 because an Abstract would have completed the paper.