Thinking of editing as a recursive process was quite different for me in regards to my writing. Although I was an executive editor for my high school yearbook, I never applied recursive editing to my writing outside of yearbook. I found it extremely helpful to utilize the pre-writing activities; it allowed me to organize my thoughts and ideas to see if they aligned with the topic assigned. It was also helpful to have people look over my first draft and give me comments that helped me further expand on my ideas. By having those comments, I realized I was able to incorporate more topics and examples into the final draft. For my final draft I made more edits than I thought I would. In high school “editing” was considered to be checking for grammar, sentence structure, spelling, etc. By focusing on making global edits, I extended my thoughts and ideas to include current societal issues, for example, politics. Although a touchy subject, the discussion of growth mindset related to politics and influential leaders tied in well with my overall concept and topic. By adding more substance to my essay, it touched upon broader points and in turn connected with a broader audience.
First Draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CAXRri97q1-06LBXcz8oPd4JA4wFNMk5-a0icHyUaSo/edit?usp=sharing
Final Draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1duttRupACFHxHd1N5G1lGW-elEayHIcKnktV8P_QX00/edit?usp=sharing
