Exercise 5.1 - 11/18/13

Now that I've finally gotten my essay drafted, I was able to go through and do a global revision by seeing how I used my ideas and others' ideas.  With my printed essay, I took one color highlighter and highlighted every sentence that I used that was from someone else's ideas, such as facts and quotes.  I then took a second color and highlighted anything that incorporated my ideas, commentary, analysis, synthesis, claims, interpretation, or definitions.  By doing this exercise, I was able to see the ratio between using my own ideas and others' ideas. 
For this blog post, I will be answering some questions based on the work I did in class relating to my draft.
1.  Which color dominates?
      I have more of my own voice throughout my essay, but I have a good mix of having my own voice and then incorporating someone else's thoughts into my paper to back up my ideas.
2.  Are you turning over too much of the text to your sources?
     I don't believe I am because I have an equal balance of small chunks of my writing followed by small chunks of my sources, and this way, I feel like I am responding well to the conversation.
3.  Are you ignoring them and rattling on too much about what you think, or does your source use seem appropriate to support your purpose?
     I feel like I have an equal balance of using my sources and then responding with my own voice and thus adding to the conversation.  I have also made sure to keep my direct quotations limited to 10-20% of my paper, and at this point I have about 50% of the allotted 300 words used.
4.  What do you notice about the color pattern?
      As I said earlier, I noticed that there is an equal balance between my use of sources and then with my responses to add to the conversation about the benefits of K-9 units.
5.  Are you taking turns paragraph by paragraph with your sources, or is your own analysis and commentary nicely blended within paragraphs, so that the information is always anchored to your own thoughts?
      This is something that I had some trouble with, but I also had a little success with.  Most of my writing showed differences paragraph by paragraph, but there are some paragraphs where I have a blended use of others' thoughts and my ideas.  When I go to revise, I will try to make more of my paragraphs blended instead of connected.
6.  Do you surround quoted passages with your own voice and analysis?
      It seemed like it when I first went through and highlighted my draft, but I may have missed some parts or thought that I did, when in reality I might not have.
7.  Who wins the wrestling match?
      I think in the end, I have won the wrestling match, but I have used an appropriate amount of sources to back up my ideas and give them some credibility.