healing capabilities

Still putting on performance despite extenuating circumstances

Question 2

This piece originated from a one-pager where the assignment was to analyze a piece that stood out from the chapter "Solitude" in Sherry Turkle's book Reclaiming conversation.

For my second draft, I added a proper conclusion. In my first draft, I introduced more ideas about how I am never alone and talked about how my run is the only time when I am alone. However, I did not effectively explain the running example in the first draft, so I omitted it. Throughout the semester, I've learned sometimes less is more. To have a proper conclusion, I zoomed out and made a goal for the semester. By explaining a goal I made, I hope my readers also reflected and made a goal for themselves.

I did not include this sentence in my first draft. However, throughout the semester, especially after writing my meditation on place and intellectual history essays, I learned the importance of describing a scene using specific concrete examples. By adding in how everyone else also had their heads down looking at their phones, the reader can easily paint an image in their head of what the beginning of class looked like.

I correctly cited Sherry Turkle's book in my second draft of this one pager. I now know that a full-length book title is italicized whenever you refer to a full-length book title.

In my first draft, I immediately discussed the quote from page 71 of Reclaiming conversation without a proper introduction. For my revised piece, instead of just saying I related to the quote from Turkle, I thought it would be effective to use a personal anecdote. Using a specific personal story of me eating in the car, my reader can understand why I related to the quote. Also, the reader can get to know me better and learn about my life growing up.

After my first draft, I knew I had to discuss my research topic and how I arrived at my research question before jumping into all my evidence. After all, the essay assignment was to put my sources into a conversation to answer a research question (Should cities host the Olympics?) This end to my introduction helped introduce my question and served as a way to prevent the paper from becoming a dry research paper that only stated facts and statistics. Writing about how I came across my question and became interested in my topic effectively explained my research process. I also thought sharing the shockingly high cost of the Tokyo Olympics would draw my readers in like it drew me to my research question.

I wasn't pleased with my original conclusion in the first draft, especially after learning about the different types of narrative structures (culminating, mosaic, back and forth, topdown). I felt like the conclusion failed to connect to my original line of inquiry and did not come back to any ideas I referenced in my introduction. I wanted to use a culminating narrative structure, where you introduce a personal anecdote and then build off it and come to a conclusion at the end of the paper. For my second draft, I included this line referencing the ideas I mentioned in the introduction. In the introduction, I talked about how I always wanted to be an Olympian growing up, which connects to why I was so interested in studying this topic. I then reference how my perspective has slightly changed due to learning about the inter-workings of the Olympic games. I hope by reflecting on my initial desire to be an Olympian, readers can also recognize how their perception of the Olympic games could have changed.

Another suggestion I received during my conference and the peer review workshop was to comment on future Olympic games. So I discussed how Paris, the host of the 2024 games, planned to keep costs down. Including this was interesting and explains why my topic is still relevant today. Furthermore, including this helped put my past research in the context of the future and explain why it is crucial to learn about past Olympics failures to plan future Olympic games and hopefully avoid past mistakes.

During the workshop, my peers shared what they deemed the most memorable part of my paper. The overwhelming majority of people were shocked to learn that Montreal went 720% over budget for the 1976 winter games. Since this point was the most memorable for my second draft, I wanted to highlight this staggering statistic even more. To do so, I used a hypothetical example that again refers directly to my intended audience, my peers. Using a simple everyday example such as buying milk and eggs at the grocery store, the readers can grasp exactly what going over budget by 720% means. The hypothetical examples also really emphasize the shocking piece of evidence I found.

One of the biggest takeaways from my essay workshop was to include more reactions and personal anecdotes. So for my second draft, I tried to have more of my thoughts; this would also help my essay not turn into a research paper and stay an inquiry. For example, I stated how I would feel if the Olympics were in my city. My own reaction forced my peers (the intended audience) to reflect on their feeling if their city hosted the Olympics. As a reader myself, I enjoy it when an author poses a question to me because it keeps me engaged in the text, so I replicated this idea in my own writing.

Initially, I had a vision for my inquiry to include how a city's type of government impacts the Olympics. For example, in my research, I came across the conclusion that the International Olympic Committee may prefer corrupt governments because they have no problem taxing their citizens, as opposed to a constitutional monarchy, where the country must follow the laid out constitution to remain in power and therefore, may have a hard time justifying taxing the citizens. Initially, in my first draft, I even talked about how America's capitalist nature fuels our desire as young children to be the best and compete at the Olympics. However, after my conference, I realized that it would be impossible to effectively explain these ideas with a suggested length of six pages. So, instead, I only included this line about Japan, the last Olympic host being a constitutional monarchy. This is a perfect example of yet another thing I learned this semester; it is better to fully develop a few great ideas than not fully develop several average ideas.

I added this part so readers knew what type of things are included in the total cost for an Olympics. One of the biggest struggles this semester was making sure readers understood what I was talking about. I noticed in my first drafts I frequently did not fully explain my ideas. It was not until after stepping away and revisiting the first draft I realized no reader would understand what I meant by "an estimated total cost for everything." What's everything?