The process of writing in XML certainly affected my writing process. I cannot say if this was for better or worse, but I can say that it forced me to consider the meaning behind groups of sentences. For instance when composing the summary portion of each annotated bibliography, I had to narrow my focus. I could focus on interpreting the article and writing my own take-away, or I could write a general summary. It was sometimes tempting to choose a little of each, but having the label near next to the start of each element encouraged me to strictly fall into either category.
Now, it may not be fair to say that I was forced to choose a category, but having definitive criteria for each element certainly encouraged the paradigm. I found myself framing thoughts in either more subjective or less subjective ways in order to stay consistent. That is one area where I see an immediate improvement. While writing I also started to understand how you create your own work from reading others’ work, as our reading has talked in length.
In regards to changing the schema, I don’t have any idea on how we could change it. I thought the process in which we developed it as a class was productive and it was valuable to hear and incorporate the classes thoughts on what we would eventually use.
