Reading Response

Iara Fernal
English 102
Christy Vance
11-17-09
This week’s reading was a chapter of Bruce Ballenger’s book, ‘The Curious Researcher’. In this chapter the main point the author was trying to make was to explain that even though revising a paper can sound like a big challenge, it actually is just a good opportunity to improve something which you have already worked on. I believe that when writing this chapter Bruce was trying to get his readers to understand how to do a good review on a previous draft, and he certainly was able to reach his goal.
In this chapter Ballenger uses several examples of how to approach a review. I really liked how he stated that revising a paper is like a wrestling match, and that the writer is the little guy while the draft is the though contender. That is exactly how I feel at this moment while we prepare to start revising our drafts for the portfolio. I feel like I have worked so hard on my draft that it is hard to let go of it, revise and make changes. However, after this week’s reading reviewing no longer sounds so scary and difficult. Prior to reading this chapter I was really skeptical about changing anything on my paper, but now I have realized and learned how to well on reviewing a paper and I feel a lot more comfortable.
This reading was perfect because it relates 100% to what we are working on in class at this time, which is starting to review our papers for our final project – the portfolio, which includes all our previous papers and the revised version of it. I am really glad I read this chapter before I started working on my reviews!