Review is Invaluable (+ Grammarly Video Intro)

Note: This post was edited using Grammarly. I made a video of the editing process which you can watch here: 

Dr. White, my journalism professor, gave me an editorial writing assignment. I decided to write about recruiting black engineers for graduate school. The high concentration of black engineers graduating from HBCUs means it will be more efficient to recruit black engineers for graduate school from HBCUs than from PWIs. I worked diligently on the assignment, even going as far as creating a word cloud image to include as a graphic. When I had completed the first draft, I submitted it. A few days later it was time to submit the final version. I edited it a bit before turning in the corrected version of my editorial. At the time I thought it was pretty good; boy was I wrong.

As part of the peer review, a classmate reviewed my editorial and stated that she was unsure if I was arguing for or against black engineers going to HBCUs for graduate school. As I re-read my editorial, I saw how unclear I was regarding this point. If only I had asked her to read it before I submitted it. You can check grammar and spelling quickly as you write, but your thesis’s clarity requires another set of eyes.

This assignment reinforced one fundamental maxim in writing; there is no substitute for having someone read over what you have written. It’s easy to miss something big when you are your only reviewer.