The Ol' College Try

Yesterday, I finished revising my paper titled "Sites of Resistance: Weblogs and Creative Commons Licenses" for the AoIR conference. It was nominated for a student prize (based on the abstract), so I thought I better revise the paper, which I wrote for a class last spring. The original paper was definitely not my best work; I just did what I could with the time allotted, which you have to do sometimes, right? I was dreading looking at the paper, but I did, because I thought about my general guideline in situations like these: If you don't apply for that job/scholarship/award, you have a 100% chance of NOT getting it. If you do apply, you will increase those odds slightly.

I don't think I've ever revised a paper on such a large scale. I mean I took that thing apart and put it back together again. I took out whole paragraphs, cut whole sections and pasted them in different places in the paper, and added paragraphs and sentences that helped express my argument in a more authoritative voice. In other words, I did what all those writing textbooks say to do, and I'm happy with the results. I'm actually going to submit the paper to the conference archive in a few days for all to see! To friends, I joked that trying to revise this paper was like polishing a turd. It was, but I learned in the process, which couldn't come at a better time, as I'm about to start teaching composition again.