Now that you’ve finished watching a video on the workshopping process, let’s put what you learned to practice! On this page and the next, you’ll use a guide to help workshop one of your peer’s submissions of Assignment 1: Annotations and Writing Plan, focusing specifically on source summary, credibility, and your peer’s main argument. As stated in the video, it’s important to be honest and thorough during the workshopping process. Your job is to help your peer determine how clear his or her intended argument is and how well the sources he or she has found support that argument.

To begin, access your Annotations and Writing Plan from the Notebook under “Course Tools.” Copy and paste them to the discussion forum below. While in the discussion forum, select a post made by another student to workshop. Once you have selected the Annotations and Writing Plan you will workshop, leave a note in reply to your peer’s discussion thread indicating your choice. Now you’re ready to walk through the workshopping process! On the next page, complete the Activity that will walk you through the process of workshopping the Annotations and Writing Plan you chose.

**PEERS WORK**

The argument that I will be addressing is veteran suicide is not taken seriously. The argument is derived from my major because suicide deals with mental health. The major that I am pursuing is psychology and my intended field of work is to be a psychiatrist. Veterans don’t get the mental health they need which, causes them to fall into a spiral of alcohol and drug abuse. Often in combination with the addiction to drugs and alcohol, suicide becomes a choice for veterans because the help they get is sub-par if they are lucky enough to get the help.
My key points will be simple ones yet, explain the struggles that veterans go through. The first point is that veteran suicide is caused by many factors while in service, they can range from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder also known as PTSD to Depression and even Traumatic Brain Injuries or TBIs. This supports my main argument because, many people are led to believe that veterans who commit suicide all struggled with PTSD, that is simply not true. My second key point is while we are in the service we don’t necessarily get the best help when it comes to mental health. A clear majority of us are afraid to seek the help because it isn’t good, or we fear that it will end our career. Because of this we often just suffer in silence and it worsens our mental and emotional health. My third key point is that when we leave the military, we bring our injuries and trauma, emotional, mental, and physical. We take the time to seek the help we need from the Veterans’ Affairs yet, they are quick to turn us away leaving us to seek help elsewhere. This supports my main point because when we can’t get the help we need, and our struggles become overwhelming some, decide to end it all.
My audience are the people who don’t think veteran suicide is a huge problem or that we have received proper mental health. The potentials that I may face supporting my argument are many. The most common one that I will have is answering the question “well you know the risks involved with the military, and you joined so why should we help you?”. Being able to tell my audiences the many causes of veteran suicide will be challenging because, there are many, many reasons for their suicide. A clear majority of veterans who commit suicide have been struggling for a while, so my audience will ask why didn’t they didn’t seek help sooner? Explaining to my audience the struggles that we go through and more will be challenging, I know this because my family members and friends who have never been in the military have a hard time understanding me.
My goal for this is to raise awareness for veteran suicide and the underlying causes of it. My essay will need enough evidence from multiple sources. I will search through libraries and websites for books, articles, and videos that I can gather evidence. I will also speak to fellow veterans who have struggled with suicidal thoughts and ask them how long it took for them to get the help they needed, if any. Over all for my essay to be successful, all I need is evidence.
The sources that I found were articles within medical journals. They were written by college professors that had the credentials to write on the topic of veteran suicide. In those articles I found statistics from places such as the VA, that showed the rate of veteran suicide. They will help reinforce my argument because it will prove to those who say veteran suicide isn’t a big deal, that suicide is a bigger problem than they thought. I also found evidence in an article that posed a counter argument, in the article it stated that veterans were receiving adequate mental health care from the VA. Yet, the rate of veteran suicide would say otherwise, giving evidence to my key points.
My key points align with my supporting resources because, the statistics found give evidence that veteran suicide is high and still climbing. It also gives evidence of the many causes of suicide among them. My key point of veterans not receiving the mental health care they deserve, the statistics of veteran suicide highlight that my key point is correct. The VA claims to give adequate health care, yet, in my sources it says otherwise and gives enough evidence. The neglect that we as veterans face from the VA is rampant and the numbers prove that.
Over the week I have thought of several good places to place strategic evidence. But, I honestly think that the best places are the same ones I listed in assignment one. I think that a bit of evidence in the introduction would be a great place to start. Twenty-two veterans commit suicide a day and not a single person will know or care, that could serve as the starting sentence. Within the main body where I will speak on my key points, will also be a great I can even give some of the statistics I found in my sources. This is a great place because I will be able to give more evidence there as opposed to my introduction and conclusion. The final place I have thought of is the conclusion. In the conclusion I could give final statistics of veteran suicide and ways that we can help prevent it, as well as highlighting how poorly the VA handles veterans with suicidal tendencies.
The revision strategy that would be effective for me is peer review. I say that because, I don’t consider myself a strong writer. I am prone to making simple grammatical errors. I also tend to overthink on what I write and often fix what didn’t need to be fixed, while overlooking the errors. I prefer others look over my work and tell me what I can do to improve my writing skill.
My writing can improve with feedback from others because, as I stated earlier I don’t consider myself a strong writer. I often overthink and overlook my grammatical mistakes. Those that look over my work may find those and let me know. I can integrate that feedback by adjusting my sentences and grammar. I believe that an outside party looking over my work is the best way for me to improve my paper. All feedback could be integrated by making minor adjustments.