Second Draft, Exponential Benefits
- Saturday, October 29 2011 @ 10:20 am
- Contributed by: Jet
- Views: 1,355
When I was in school, rewriting an essay was the most dreaded assignment in any English class. I’d spent time on it the first time around; I’d looked it over before I turned it in. How could it get any better? Why waste my time?
Of course, once I sat down with the goal of improving it, it did, in fact, get better. It always turned out my first effort, no matter how good, could always be more polished. And yet, it was still something I had to force myself to do; it wasn’t intuitive.
When you construct an online profile, you don’t have an English teacher breathing down your neck. No one tells you to go back and do a second draft. Thus, it’s your responsibility to make yourself take a second look, preferably before you even post it in the first place. In fact, planning to do a second draft from the very beginning can actually improve your profile when you’re writing it the first time around.
It can be difficult to organize your thoughts, especially when you’re writing about yourself - after all, in what other subject are you more knowledgeable? The important facts and the interesting anecdotes can get lost in white noise. On the other hand, you know that you shouldn’t have a profile that’s long and ponderous, so you attempt to self-edit as you go. You could wind up with a jumble that doesn’t flow well and is missing key information.
So what to do? Well, if you’re intending on writing a second draft, you don’t have to worry about length the first time around. Write out all your thoughts, whether or not you think they’re the most important or interesting. Once everything is laid out before you, you might begin to notice common threads - an interest in helping people, for example, or an abundance of energy in work and play. Suddenly you’re not just reciting facts about yourself - you’re telling a concise story about the kind of person you are. And as any child can tell you, a story is far more interesting than dry facts.
As you begin to put pieces together and pull out threads, it becomes easier to recognize and delete the extraneous bits. And, of course, you might reword and edit grammar as you go, too. So as you sit down to create your profile, think of writing as a multi-step process. You’ll wind up less stressed, and with a more polished final product.
Of course, once I sat down with the goal of improving it, it did, in fact, get better. It always turned out my first effort, no matter how good, could always be more polished. And yet, it was still something I had to force myself to do; it wasn’t intuitive.
When you construct an online profile, you don’t have an English teacher breathing down your neck. No one tells you to go back and do a second draft. Thus, it’s your responsibility to make yourself take a second look, preferably before you even post it in the first place. In fact, planning to do a second draft from the very beginning can actually improve your profile when you’re writing it the first time around.
It can be difficult to organize your thoughts, especially when you’re writing about yourself - after all, in what other subject are you more knowledgeable? The important facts and the interesting anecdotes can get lost in white noise. On the other hand, you know that you shouldn’t have a profile that’s long and ponderous, so you attempt to self-edit as you go. You could wind up with a jumble that doesn’t flow well and is missing key information.
So what to do? Well, if you’re intending on writing a second draft, you don’t have to worry about length the first time around. Write out all your thoughts, whether or not you think they’re the most important or interesting. Once everything is laid out before you, you might begin to notice common threads - an interest in helping people, for example, or an abundance of energy in work and play. Suddenly you’re not just reciting facts about yourself - you’re telling a concise story about the kind of person you are. And as any child can tell you, a story is far more interesting than dry facts.
As you begin to put pieces together and pull out threads, it becomes easier to recognize and delete the extraneous bits. And, of course, you might reword and edit grammar as you go, too. So as you sit down to create your profile, think of writing as a multi-step process. You’ll wind up less stressed, and with a more polished final product.
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