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Some writing doesn't require many steps, such as writing in a journey or diary; you're able to just pick up your writing utensil, grab a piece of paper, and just unload your thoughts on a page, but for the majority of writing, there are numerous steps and thought processes that go into a piece. Below are the steps and processes I underwent when writing my digital essay, "Cupid's Chokehold," based off of Ed Sheeran's music video "Give Me Love."

a writer's steps

Step 1A

Step 1A

Before writing anything, it's important to plan. For our digital essay assignment, it was especially crucial to plan because of all the analyzing and connections that were required to be made in our literary analysis (you don't want to start writing on some random music video then find out you can't go anywhere with it because it's just a terribly dumb music video). I did two separate planning assignments (one of which I didn't finish…oops…) before deciding on Ed Sheeran's "Give Me Love" video.

Step 1B

Step 1B

Above is a continuation of the planning process I took when deciding on a media to analyze for my digital essay.

Step 1C

Step 1C

Above is a continuation of the planning process I took when deciding on a media to analyze for my digital essay.

Step 2A

Step 2A

After doing some research and deciding that I wanted to do my literary analysis on Ed Sheeran's music video "Give Me Love," I watched the whole music video and took notes on every detail that I found significant in the music video. This helped me draw connections to the mythological Cupid, and provided a resource to refer to when writing the actual paper.

Step 2B

Step 2B

Above is a continuation of my notes that I took while watching Ed Sheeran's music video "Give Me Love."

Step 3

Step 3

After reviewing my notes and drawing connections from the analyzing of "Give Me Love" I had done, I began a rough draft of what I believed would be my thesis statement (as seen in pink writing) for "Cupid's Chokehold."

Step 4

Step 4

In this daybook entry, you can see at the top of the page I had taken some notes on how to create a good thesis statement. In the pink box, I began my drafting for my thesis statement for my digital essay "Cupid's Chokehold," based off of my notes I had taken in step 1, the conclusions I had drawn from the notes, and my rough draft of my thesis statement shown in step 2.

Step 5

Step 5

After revising and editing my thesis statement a couple times, I finished my thesis statement (as shown in the top pink box), and moved on towards the peer revision portion of the editing.

"It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long as you edit brilliantly."

 

- C. J. Cherryh

Step 6

With the music video and connections drawn from the analyzing of the music video (connections to the myth of Cupid and Psyche) I began researching the actual myth along with psychological research on love itself (the idea from this was drawn from the depressed nature of the main character in Sheeran's music video). I pulled all the websites I visited in my research, along with other websites I thought would contribute to my essay, and posted them on a Word document for easy access in the future. I also began rough-drafting my essay.

 

 

 

 

Step 7

I wrote my essay. No, it was not perfect up front (no essay is perfect in the first draft), but I did incorporate all the analyzing and connections I had drawn from the music video into my essay. I referred back to my links that I had found in Step 5, used my thesis I had written in step 4, and highlighted areas in my essay that I would link digitally in the actual digital essay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 9

With the help of peer reviews, I edited my first draft of my essay to finally get the "perfect essay" outcome that I was striving for. In the link below, you will find the final document with comments in the margins that show the corrections I had made to "Cupid's Chokehold" in the transition from step 6 to step 7.

 

 

 

 

Step 10

Now, the fun part: spicing up my all new digital essay. With a revised and finished essay, I was able to add the photos and links. Check out "Cupid's Chokehold"  here.

Friendly Reminder: As we travel through my writing journey together, don't forget to hover over the images to view steps and read descriptions!

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