Camellia, W14, Topic Refinement

Before pitching to the class, I believe I already had a firm grasp on my topic.  My original podcast topic was: to offer quick tips to help people remember how to differentiate between homophones (which is words that have different meanings and different spellings, but all sound the same) and to explore why people misuse homophones.  But, the pitch did indeed help me to refine this topic.  The pitch had a four minute time constraint which forced me to talk about the most interesting/important aspects of my topic. 

After pitching to the class and brainstorming with my TA, I have come to the conclusion that my refined topic is: the misuse of homophones within social media, as well as my tips to differentiate between the homophones, specifically the homophones ‘there, their, they’re’ and ‘to, two, too.’  Overall, the pitch allowed me to specify my topic because I had to ensure my topic would be able to capture, and thus, hold my audience’s attention!

Pitching can be a useful pre-writing exercise for other writing assignments as well.  When you pitch, it helps you form a concise argument and allows you to get feedback from others on the strengths and weaknesses of your topic.  A pitch requires you to “get to the point” when pitching your topic and if you are able to do so, then you will be able to have focus throughout your whole writing process.