I learned what a dropped quote is from writing Paper One,
which really took me by surprise because no English instructor of mine has ever
mentioned this “elusive” drop-quoting phenomenon. Now that I have ruminated
upon why having a dropped quote is so intolerable, I have realized that dropped
quotes have an isolating, standalone presence, taking away a significant amount
of oomph from the argument. I encountered a few other troubles when writing
Paper One like trying really hard to stay on topic but feeling the need to rant
on-and-on at some parts. I eventually cut out those dreadful parts before
turning in the draft because I felt that the sentences offered no real
substance to the purpose of the paper. On the other hand, I also added some sentences
that I’m not very proud of. Looking
back, there’s a lot I could’ve done with this paper had I not had the small
timeframe I was stuck with.
Wow, I've never heard of a dropped quote in a paper before. So I guess we are in the same boat on that one. I think though, that no matter what, over time, one will always find that one "could have done a lot more" with their writing. A sort of advanced form of l'esprit d'escalier based in writing rather than verbal arguments, you'll always find something you could've done better as your writing and understanding improves, even on a day-to-day basis. For example, immediately after reading your journal, I looked up "dropped quotes" and discovered something new. I now realized that quite a few of my papers suffer from dropped quotes everywhere. However, these are old academic papers that have already received grades. But by looking back on that and realizing I could've done better, I know I will actually do better next time.
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