Blog Post 6

Original paragraph from Draft 1: The single largest controversy facing the video game industry is their effect on players’ health. Particularly focused on violent video games and their negative contributions to mental health, there have been myriad studies performed over the past few decades on the subject. The issue typically tends to arise cyclically, usually following a violent crime committed by a teen or young person. For example, following the recent shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left several students of Stoneman Douglas High School dead or injured, the national conversation quickly turned to the subject of media’s effect on the shooter. Even the President himself Donald Trump commented on the subject, saying “I’m hearing more and more people saying the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.” Naturally, the only time national news coverage touches the topic of video games is to portray it in a negative light, showing it as some source of evil. However, the actual research is divided.

Revised Paragraph: Gaming’s effect on players’ health drives the central controversy surrounding video games. Particularly focused on violent video games and their negative contributions to mental health, there have been myriad studies performed over the past few decades on the subject. The issue typically arises cyclically, usually following a young adult committing a violent act. For example, following the recent shooting in Parkland, Florida that left several students of Stoneman Douglas High School dead or injured, the national conversation quickly turned to gaming’s effect on the shooter. Even the President Donald Trump commented on the subject, saying “I’m hearing more and more people saying the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.” National news coverage touches the topic of video games only in these controversial times. Indeed, their ideas tend to align with a negative viewpoint on gaming. Realistically however, players’ health divides the research community.

Reflection: This paragraph is located in the introduction to my paper. When I first typed it, I thought it was an effective first look into the issues I would be covering in my essay. I reread and noticed a number of issues, namely inactive verbs and lack of focus. I kept these issues in mind as I went through the process of revising the piece. I started by making most of the sentences more active. This allowed my voice to shine through much more than the original, as well as made the writing more articulate overall. Then, I went about reorganizing and altering in order to improve the focus of the paragraph. There were a few locations where simple word choice or sentence restructuring completely altered the sound of the paper. This sharpening of the focus not only improved the paragraph in a technical sense, but stylistically as well.