In my first draft, I asked a lot of questions here, such as what are the benefits of learning investing, and how does it influence people's lives. But actually these questions did not seem to be related to a subculture. I thought it was not a good idea to set the framework of the essay in the beginning, and maybe I should put a simple question here, and let the question guide my thoughts throughout the essay. So I asked a question that I was curious about, and it was also the reason I wanted to explore more about this subculture instead of the activity of investing. I thought in this way, I could have a better organization of the essay, and I could dig deeper into the follow-up questions that appeared in the later paragraphs. I think we need to think out of the box and avoid being influenced by our mindsets so that we can develop some new ideas and be more creative.

I did not mention ethics in the first draft. But when I thought about what made the subculture special, I found out that ethics was a good point to mention, and it made the club stand out from other clubs. I also added my experience about learning ethics in other class, and what made me surprised was that the club really took ethics into consideration. In the business world, it was not easy because by doing that, the club could miss some opportunities to gain profit. I thought this action was meaningful, so I added this part in the final draft.

In my first draft, I did not explain what was "pitch stocks," and later I added a footnote to give the readers a definition about stock pitching - A stock pitch is a summary of an investment idea or opportunity. Analysts write pitches to initiate discussions on a potential investment. At first I did not realize that the essay had some terminologies that could make the readers confused, including pitch stocks and value investing. So in the later versions, I tried my best to explain these words so that the readers could understand what I wanted to talk about. I think it is really important to avoid misunderstandings, and do not let these confusing words mislead the ideas I want to express.

I added the personal experience of a senior in the final draft. I thought it was a good example to show the special relationship of the members in the investment club. Before listening to his story, I thought the club members never communicated with each other, but his experience made me think about their relationships again. Thus I started to wonder why did they trust each other and wanted to know about the special values shared by them. This experience also displayed the human elements of this subculture, and was related to the main idea of this essay.

In the first draft, I ended my experience in the meeting by saying "I felt confused throughout the presentation." But I did not explain why I felt confused, and what was confusing to me. Later, I added the conversation with Faith, and told the readers about the weird phenomenon that everyone was using computers instead of communicating with each other. I think it was really interesting and needed to be further explored. So this conversation led to the questions I asked in the next paragraph - Did people communicate and interact with each other in this club? How did they build relationships? By adding the conversation, I was able to connect the two paragraphs and make smooth transitions from one idea to the next.

This essay is a revised version of the short place essay we wrote in early September. I choose this essay because after living at Boston College for a semester and going to the quiet room for so many times, I have some new observations and experiences that I want to share and add to this essay.

In my first draft, I wrote, "The silence enables me to be more focused on the work..." Mr. Z commented that "Is it true silence?" After considering this question, I found out that I misunderstand the word. The room is quiet instead of silent. I added my own experience in this room to explain the quietness, and I tried to give the readers a feeling of actually being there. I learn that utilizing our own experiences is a good tool to make our essay more interesting, and I also learn that besides hearing, we can describe many other things such as smell and vision to make our essay more vivid.

In my first draft, I ended this sentence with "makes me feel at home." Then Mr. Z commented that "What caused you to feel that new sense of caring?" I recognized that my essay was not being specific, and I needed to have some more sentences to further explain my feelings so that my essay could be more reasonable to the readers. I started to observe and note down other people's actions in the room, and added a few things to this sentence. I tried to connect what I did at home and what students did in the room, and soon I found out some similarities. Here, I learned to be more specific and add more details in order to make my essay more understandable and attractive.