Here are some of my notes taken in preparation for Major Paper 3
Before I Interviewed my professional in the discourse community I selected, I came up with a final list of interview questions. I went into the interview expecting that I would come up with new questions as the need arose.
I then interviewed Colonel William Walter Yates Retired of the United States Marine Corps to find out more about the military (his community of practice). The transcript from this 13 minute interview is attached below.
After collecting all of the information I needed from the interview, I began to write my essay. I used my outlines and the interview transcript to help me on the first draft. After writing a very very rough draft, I slept on it a revised it for 6 hours the following day. This is the result and the rough draft that I submitted:
Peer Review Suggestions:
This sentence: "more specifically... the community of practice includes both the operating forces, those in combat, and the headquarters and supporting establishment, where policy is created an revised, and troops receive support" (3) was a bit confusing to me. I didn't quite understand what was being said. Maybe break this sentence up into two or three sentences so it's easier to digest.
Although the genres were identifiable, it might serve the paper good for the writer to directly describe them as such. This goes mainly toward the military base behavior example; for a quote in which it is described as a genre couldn’t even be found.Â
The writer mentions thinking about having a medical position within the military on page one, paragraph two, and leaves that idea there. It could be useful to tie that into the conclusion in the end.
Professor Gillespie's Notes:
Good info in here! I think you bring an interesting angle to this assignment.
:) "Recently I have been entertaining the idea of practicing medicine for the military overseas."
Yes, good example: "For example, when a superior officer speaks to a subordinate, the subordinate has a blueprint for the ways that they should respond and the body language that they must present."
I wonder if this might work as a second paragraph?: "A second and maybe more extreme example comes from a personal experience. One time when I was around 11 years old..."
I wonder if ideas from the "literacy within the military" might be more effective if placed a bit sooner in the essay? It might help transition to genre.
I must admit that for the previous two major papers, I was less confident in the structure and overall soundness of my writing. For this paper, I knew exactly where I wanted it to go from beginning to end. In the past, I would take every single piece of constructive criticism to heart and follow the advice to the t, yet for this paper, I was confident enough in my paper not to follow some of the advice from my peers. My reasoning for this was that had I changed those things about my paper, it would not have necessarily become better, it just would have become less of my writing and more of others'.
After making the changes to my paper I deemed helpful from my peers, and heeding the advice of my professor, I ended up with the paper I am most proud of in this class. This paper best exemplified my writing style and my thought process out of all of the pieces I've written for this class.