The start of my writing carrier proved to be an uphill task for me. As a result, I learnt the hard way when I first ventured into the idea of writing. When I started thinking about the way, my writing has changed from the start of the semester to the present moment, my thoughts wandered through many different things. I feel that I have improved my writing and I can now write better to the audience instead of writing for myself. Furthermore, my belief is that I have acquired the ability of controlling my sources instead of allowing the sources I am using in my writing to control how I write the paper.
However, I currently feel that the course has taught me a lot and I have learnt focusing my inquiry questions and thesis in such a way that I can develop a more meaningful analysis for my readers. In this regard, I will delve into that matter in this paper as I investigate how I have made my inquiry questions laser focused so that I can invent a thesis that is more meaningful using researched source materials as my basis. Even though these two changes have tremendously improved my writing, I believe that they can be traced back to the biggest challenge that I have observed over the course of this semester. Focusing my inquiry questions and thesis so that I can make a more meaningful analysis for my audience has been very challenging.
I feel that the best point to start this investigation is by looking at the revisions that I made as I went through the writing of project three. I have decided to choose project three as the starting point of my analysis since it is the most recent project that I have worked on. In this project, I was able to make a few revisions to my inquiry question and thesis so that I made my thesis sound more meaningful to the reader. Project 3 required me to make an analysis of an artifact, the Gibson Les Paul. As I progressed with project three, I ended up making various changes to my inquiry question so that it became focused enough in such a way that it allowed me to develop a meaningful thesis for my answer question.
After gathering feedback regarding the original draft of my inquiry question, I realized that the common consensus was the idea that the question covered too much and through this question, I was unable to develop a specific and meaningful thesis for answering my question since I was trying to cover too much information. The decision to change my inquiry question was influenced by other students as I wrote a draft of the original question and requested them to read the draft. Having other students reading my draft was a tactic that seemed like I had presented my writing to a real audience and their feedback would be very beneficial in the development of my paper. They would respond just like the real audience would and their reviews and reactions would be the vital information I needed to develop my writing skills. My initial inquiry question was focused on all genres of music and therefore, the inquiry question was not clear to the readers. This initial inquiry question was, “What makes the Les Paul such a popular guitar?”
As I researched and wrote project three, I decided to make changes to this inquiry question so that it became more specific and clear. I decided to adjust my research question so that it focused on a specific genre of music. After listening to this feedback from my peers, I was able to realize this problem as well. I realized that this is the challenge that I have been trying to work on throughout the course of this semester. From that moment onwards, I made a decision to develop a more meaningful thesis that had a close relation with the materials discovered.
After developing an inquiry question that focused on a specific category, I had the ability of identifying a source that was beneficial to read and if possible, the source together with my focused research question would help me develop a stronger thesis. The specifically focused inquiry question also helped me make a thesis that was much more believable and meaningful. In the development of my new thesis, I made the inquiry question more focused. The question was: “What makes the Les Paul popular in the rock genre?” This revision was vital in my writing process as making the revision enabled me to carry more focused research.
My research question was focused on a specific category. An inquiry question that covers multiple categories reduces the ability of the audience to decipher the main point that I am driving towards in my paper. Furthermore, having a specific research category made my research easier and less time consuming.Covering numerous categories meant that I had to look into numerous different sources. As such, many resources means more time spent in the search for the perfect sources and eventually, the time spent in the development of a single writing task becomes more. My writing would be more believable considering that all my research would focus on an artifact in the rock genre. Furthermore, I was able to use the source material in directly supporting the thesis I was developing since both were genre specific.
In my initial inquiry question, I would be making claims about all genres of music and it would be very difficult to make this seem credible to the reader, as I would be trying to make claim about a topic that was too broad. After developing the specific inquiry question, I was able to focus on the rock genre only. Focusing on a specific genre gave me the ability of developing a more meaningful thesis regarding my artifact that is only applicable in the rock genre. All these developments in my writing were made possible by all the Eli Review cycles that we covered. Concerning project three that I have been talking about in the previous sections, one of the comments received from my reviewers was about me taking control of the way I handled my story telling. This comment was written on my first draft of project three.
According to my peer, I probably needed to tweak my question into something that would grant me the ability to take control of my own paper rather than allow others to speak for me. It appeared that I wrote my paper in such a way that I made the voice of other people more influential in my writing than my own voice. I did not have the expertise needed to use the sources of information in such a way that they did not control me. My inquiry question did not allow me to maneuver through my writing easily and therefore, it appeared as if I had no control over my writing.In this regard, I realized that I needed to tweak my inquiry question.
The suggestion from my peer propelled me in right path of making my thesis become more meaningful. I focused on my inquiry question with the knowledge that it was necessary that I invent an inquiry question that was more meaningful. In the previous sections of my essay, I have already discussed the steps I followed in fixing the problem I faced in project three. However, I brought up Eli Review since I am aware that Eli Review together with Ballenger readings, and the comments received from my peers facilitated the changes that I have witnessed in my writing over the course of the semester. Having read this comment from my peer, I knew that the thesis I had originally developed did not sound meaningful to my readers and my assertions in the writing did not appear as I had allowed other people to take control of my writing. As I struggled to develop a clearer and more focused inquiry question, it came to my realization that this issue had disturbed me earlier in the semester.
After I noticed the changes I made to my inquiry question in project three, and observing the way Eli Review assisted me in making these changes, I decided to analyze the reviews of my other projects on Eli. I noticed a comment left on my project one draft concerning the same issue with my thesis. According to my reviewer, the most critical thing that I needed to change was focusing my thesis on a single thing rather than focusing on two things (Schuele 1). The reviewer insisted that the particular change needed tobe effected at the beginning of the paper when I was mentioning my thesis. The reviewer further asserted that they their evaluation of my paper would have been all five starts were it not for the fact that my paper was not focused on particular areas, hence the reason for reduced stars on some places.
The unrevised project one thesis was “There are two ways that I found in Finance article, the author used to attract audience. Using subtitles and videos.” After learning how to focus my thesis, I revised project one thesis to “This paper will analyze the use of subtitles and videos by economists to attract the audience”. Looking at my project one, I realized that throughout the semester, I have been working on developing a focused thesis, and right now, I feel that I am more ware of thesis development and I can easily develop a focused thesis. Furthermore, I believe that focusing my thesis leads to the development of a more focused inquiry question that informs me on the specific things that I need to look for as I carry out my research Development of a focused thesis requires one to be very clear about a single issue that they are researching.
I feel that I have gained the ability to single out one important thing that I will be working on in any research that I will be dealing with in future. The comments from the reviewer informed me that I needed to make my thesis more meaningful and to do that I needed to focus on a single thing as multiple things are just too much in the making of a credible argument.. Creating an inquiry question that is focused on a single thing makes me avoid answering two questions in my writing. Dealing with two questions at the same time makes my thesis to look less focused and thereby, results into my work appearing less meaningful to the reader. Furthermore, dealing with two questions might make the writing appear vague, as I do not have a specific landing point where I can direct all the points that I develop as I write.
In project one, my research centered on the way academics in my field write. One of my initial inquiry questions was:“how do writers in my field use charts and data tables to present their information and aid in understandability and help make their paper more clear?”. Going over that question at this time makes me wince. The three issues were similar in a way but their similarity was not close enough in such a way that a single thesis would answer the three of them. After reading the comment I quoted earlier in this essay from Eli Review, I decided to revise my inquiry question so that it sounded this way: “Why do academics in my field use charts and data tables?”
This inquiry question may look like a broad question but it allowed me to look for a particular thing that charts and data tables have been doing in writing. The problems I encountered as I carried my research on this question were caused by the fact that I was looking for multiple things instead of a specific thing. I was trying to collect information for supporting a thesis based on three different issues. I feel that this question is too wordy and tries to answer three questions at a single instance. According to that question, I was trying to find how information is presented by graphs, how graphs help readers understand information, and how the graphs make the paper clearer.
The revised inquiry question also allowed me to develop a meaningful thesis. Looking at this inquiry question, I realize that the question is not nearly as focused as I would like it to be now.. The revision I made for my inquiry question allowed me to develop a thesis that sounded meaningful to the reader since it was answering just one question. However, considering that this was the first project that I had written, this was a significant step towards the improvement of my writing. The changes made in the development of my inquiry questions have provided me with numerous benefits through the course of the semester. I can easily develop meaningful and credible thesis using what I “read” in my sources as the basis. Furthermore, I can take control of my writing and I feel that I have the ability to control the sources. I can now write better to the audience. A comparison between the inquiries questions developed in project one and the one developed in project three indicates significant improvement in my writing. When I revised the other piece of work, I learnt a lot in the idea of writing. Revisions make it easy for a person to learn their mistakes.
Work Cited
Schuele, Emma.Elireview.com, Michigan State University. 11 Feb. 2016. Web. 13 April 2016.
