Workshopping Homework

1. When I think about a workshop draft I think about a rough draft.  The point is to basically get your thoughts down on paper, but not to expect it to be your finished draft.  Your paper should be organized, but have room to be revised.  You shouldn't worry if the person working on your paper writes all over it because they are just trying to make it better.  From what I got out of the reading last night, I noticed  it said that when your paper is being revised, don't hesitate to change things because it didn't really take you long to come up with your first draft in the first place.  Nobody expects their first draft to be amazing, even though we all wish we did, so editing it isn't the end of the world.  When I write my workshop drafts I basically just put my thoughts down on paper and then add more later.  The purpose of your paper, I think, should stay consistent throughout your draft and final paper.  You may not have all of your complete thoughts yet, but beginning to come up with ideas and sources in your workshop draft would be a good idea.  You want to have something valid to work off of, not just any random sentences that have nothing to do with the topic.  Your purpose should not really change from your workshop draft to your finished draft, unless you need to change your paper completely.  I think your audience though, can be different from your workshop draft to your final draft.  This is because when you first start talking about a subject you may think you know who you want to focus your attention on, but in the end your ideas may shift to another audience.  It is not big deal if you eventually change who you want to be focusing on, but make sure that you keep it consistent in the end.

2. If I was workshopping on Essay "R" I would be up to helping the author make it a lot better.  Everyone agrees that it is not the best paper, but revising it will make it more like a finished copy.  First I would tell the author to try and start by making an outline.  If he took the ideas that he had in his paper and tried to put them into an outline, then maybe the flow of the paper would be better.  The outline would also allow for a clear thesis to be written, basically summing up what he was going to talk about in the rest of the paper.  Also I would go and look for as many sentence fragments and mistakes that are obvious.  I would try and give some suggestions on ways to make the paper better, by helping with transitions and different ways of saying things.  Basically I think if this author set up an outline and organized everything better, his entire paper would be much better.  I could possibly start helping set up the outline, but this kid needs to put in more effort to create a finished draft.  The people revising your paper are not going to re-write your paper for you, but will give suggestions on to how to get started on improving your work.