The revision process for my Presentation Essay was started near the beginning of the quarter, when we first began to read Paul Heilker’s “On Genres as Ways of Being” and brainstorming ideas of our own questions about genres. Since then there have been many revisions, rough drafts, and final revisions. This essay has had two final editions before this one, with both focused on the same main question but each tackling it at different angles. The first essay was interested on how the multiple genres that someone inhabits is the definition of that person. The second one was about previous genres and how they interact with learning new genres. The final version, the Presentation Essay is more similar to the second essay than the first.

 

            The first occurrence of the subject of my essays was in the third Critical-Inquiry-and-Practice (CIP) assignment that was due in class. This assignment was where the main question for these essays comes from. It was after this CIP that as a class we started to write our first essay, the critical inquiry question essay. This first essay was fairly good, and was by far the easiest to write out of the three revisions of this essay. It was slightly misguided on the subject matter, attempting to answer questions that I could not hope to get right with my skill. None the less, it is the backbone of my final presentation essay. After this essay as a class we read Paul Gee and his essay on discourses.

 

            From Gee I began to write the second revision of this essay. This essay is more focused and on point with its subject matter, but lacks total understanding of the central rhetoric writing moves that were to be used in our writing. While writing this revision my main goal was fixing the major issues of the previous version. I did not want to let the subject matter, the central aspect of any essay, be the downfall of my writing. Due to this the essay is very focused on its topic, but lacks in other equally important areas.

I was still stuck on writing essays by asking questions, not making assertive claims. This is not to say that the essay contains no claims, but that it does not focus on the assertions it makes. They are not the focus of the essay, which is this revision’s biggest problem. Other rhetorical moves did prosper though; I learned about and utilized the rhetorical citation package. In the previous there are full quotes as well as paraphrases, but they are more instinctually used despite resembling citation packages. In this second essay the quotes used are more planned, and more tied together neatly. They are backed up with explanations and are shown why they are important and justify my claims.

 

          This second essay, as I have said was lacking in certain areas when it came to rhetorical moves but prospered in others. It was focused and less ambiguous when it came to the subject matter compared to the first, and was an overall improvement. The final revision, the presentation essay is very similar to this essay. It shares the same subject, with major improvements on the needed areas of improvement. In this final revision of my original essay for English 101, I can show how it utilizes three rhetorical writing moves intrinsic to critical inquiry writing that we have covered in our class times and homework.

 

          The first of three critical inquiry writing moves utilized in my presentation essay is the use of critical inquiry questions. First of all, critical inquiry questions are the base for most critical inquiry writing, by asking a question with an unclear answer you have set yourself up to write in an inquisitive fashion. Critical inquiry questions lead to discovery about the question, as the process of writing has the goal of answering that question. In my essay, critical inquiry questions are used right off the bat such as, “What I want to know is, how do the previous genres and discourses that people occupy or have occupied affect and change their new way of being?” This question is one I ask without knowing the answer to. It leads me to an unknown destination, even if I have a slight idea of where that place is. This question is the first one I ask in my essay, and starts the ball rolling. Everything after this question must be for the sake of eventually answering it. This does not mean that by my conclusion it is necessary to have an answer, but it is necessary to at least be closer than I was at the beginning.

 

          The second critical writing move used is the rhetorical move of illustrating. Illustrating is a very powerful writing move, allowing the writer to more personally and adequately portray an idea or piece of thought. It is akin to painting a picture. I use illustration in multiple places in my paper, but it is used most effectively when I am talking about learning how to write in the critical inquiry form. “Quite purposefully I am sent into the dark labyrinth of my question with only a ball of string to show where I have been, and asked to find my way to the center by feeling around the confusing turns and passageways.” Illustration, at least in my opinion, is at its most powerful when used to convey a particular feeling of the subject matter rather than a specific point. When trying to relate my feeling of being lost while writing in an inquisitive nature, illustration is a more effective tool than attempting to describe the writing process that I was going through.

 

            The last critical writing move I used while writing my presentation essay was the developed perspective, otherwise known as the conclusion. The conclusion has a special name due to the nature of critical inquiry writing. Since the goal of critical inquiry writing is to gain new knowledge or standing on the subject matter, the conclusion of such a paper would have to embody this new knowledge. It would need to show that the final understanding of the subject is greater than or at least different than the original understanding. This conclusion must show the writer’s developed, or changed, perspective on what they are writing about. In my paper, this developed perspective is done by illustration, and direct explanation of my new view point. My illustration is comparing adding new furniture to a room to a person learning another genre. The person is still the same person, but has also been fundamentally changed at the same time. “Rather they are more like the different kinds of furniture in a single room each adding something different, serving different purposes, and used in different ways all the while playing into each other to form a single cohesive space. It is because people hold the ability to add new furniture to an ever increasing room that they also possess the ability to grow as people. Any room in a house is always defined more by the furniture inside of it rather than the size and shape of the room itself.” This quote shows my new perspective fully. It both uses a previous critical inquiry writing move illustration along with the more specific description with it.