Outcome four stresses the ability to revise for lower and higher-order concerns in response to peer and instructor feedback. It demands attention because mistakes are inevitable, improvement is always possible, and error-ridden text doesn’t fare well in most contexts (save for the recent fortune cookie that ironically told me to “pay attention the small detail”). There is also much to learn from the revision process. I tend to do pretty well in avoiding mechanical errors (although occasionally I create more errors during the revision process itself), so while there were a few of these to deal with, my main concern here was some larger-scale troubleshooting.

I am using MP1 for this outcome because the paragraph best suited to be my complex claim was misplaced and there were a few mechanical errors. In response to instructor feedback, I moved my penultimate paragraph closer to the beginning where it serves as a clearer complex claim. It is now the third paragraph in the paper, but there was much to be done about the flow of my paragraphs after this change. In this new third paragraph, I dive straight into talking about religious and philosophical exemptions before explaining them to the reader. To solve this, I tried to at least mention religious and philosophical exemptions in the previous paragraph so that they don’t just pop up out of the blue at the beginning of my complex claim paragraph. For example, instead of ending the second paragraph with “In fact, it is this latter group that poses the greatest threat to herd immunity,” I elaborated and said “In fact, it is this latter group that poses the greatest threat to herd immunity when paired with the availability of ‘philosophical’ exemptions for routine vaccinations.” So even if I still have not explicitly defined philosophical exemptions, the reader can at least get the gist of them so that my next paragraph (which begins with “Changing the religious and philosophical exemption laws…”) doesn't feel like a terminology bomb. By mentioning the same things at the end of my second and beginning of my third paragraph, I improved the flow.

After this shift in organization, I also dealt with flow between the third and fourth paragraphs. My fourth paragraph is focused on herd immunity while the end of my third paragraph is dishing out pathos using an anecdote about a girl, Maggie, who is vulnerable to measles. To connect these, I changed the beginning of the fourth paragraph to “Maggie’s vulnerability is not only a result of her vaccination status, but a consequence of crumbling ‘herd immunity.’” Then I go on to define herd immunity without making my audience feel like I am suddenly jolting them to a different topic.

Ironically, the paragraph that I initially intended to be my complex claim is now near the end! When I wrote MP1, my logic was to write the introduction, explain the history of the anti-vaccination crowd and the definition of herd immunity, and then dive into my complex claim once the reader knows exactly what I am talking about. In retrospect, I could have been more confident in my audience’s ability to piece together what I was saying. Then I wouldn't have had three big paragraphs of setup before my complex claim.

After I fixed the larger issues here, I went back and took note of the line edits I received. I fixed a few little things, like changing “from states-to-state” to “from state-to-state,” and I added a few suggested words. After looking over the clean copy again, I noticed that I was inconsistent when I wrote about the “personal belief” exemption—half the time I hyphenated it into "personal-belief." I fixed this inconsistency and now every mention of the personal belief exemption is the same. I also noticed that one of the line edits in the beginning of my second paragraph actually creates some problems in the sentence. It doesn't make sense to say that “In 1998, a study by Andrew Wakefield, a former doctor, published an article in a scientific journal…” because studies don’t publish articles. So I changed it to “In 1998, a scientific journal published a study by former-doctor Andrew Wakefield , who claimed that...” 

All in all, I revised both the structure and the little details without changing the core meaning of MP1. The peer feedback I received was used for my first revision before I submitted the paper, so while it’s hard to see these edits, they did happen. For example, Shadman pointed out to me that the second paragraph in my rough draft indicated that religious-exemption groups were influenced or inspired by Wakefield and McCarthy, which I did not mean to imply. So in the final draft that I submitted, I clarified that “As a result [of Wakefield and McCarthy’s actions], two types of communities in the U.S. are not vaccinating their children: preexisting groups who don’t vaccinate for religious reasons, and a new group of ‘anti-vaxxers…’” Just by adding “preexisting,” I think I made it clear that the religious-exemption group did not form due to fear of autism.

Since I am the kind of person who usually chuckles at errors, I know that a clean, revised version of any text can be taken most seriously when it has had the smaller kinks ironed out. There's a bit more inertia involved in the bigger revisions—sometimes I feel like my writing is averse to change—but it's worth it if this change improves clarity. You also pointed out in class how incorrect formatting can land one's application, resumé, or CV in the recycling, so I hope that this outcome shows that even if my job application or resumé does get tossed, it won't be due to improper formatting or dumb errors!