Analysis Of Elbow And Murray: Do Two Great Minds Think Alike?

By examining the ideas in the essays Freewriting by Peter Elbow and The Makers Eye: Revising your own manuscripts by Donald Murray. One can gain a better understanding of the process of turning a piece of writing from an inspiration into a craft. By examining the elements lined out in each essay can be beneficial in creating a piece of writing that is beyond a college or student level. Elbows essay lines out the importance of a strong prewriting regimen. That editing too early can ruin writing. He believes that by using the method of free writing, it can inspire ideas that may be limited when worrying about grammar. While Murray emphasizes the necessity to create many drafts to form writing into its full potential. Saying each draft is an opportunity to discover what the author has to say and they the best way to say it. By transforming writing into its maximum potential it goes from being an idea an inspiration a masterpiece.

Writing is a powerful tool for communication and connection. As an extension and expression of the mind, writing is as much about the mental processes of the author as it is about the final marks laid to paper. As we write, we hold in mind our own thoughts on the work, anticipate the reader’s thoughts, and think both in concrete and abstract ways in order to accomplish the task at hand. Whether an academic research paper, a novel, or text message to friends, writing seeks to engage, persuade, or impress concepts upon an audience. Like language and other art forms in general, the practice of writing is ever-evolving and is subject to cultural and contextual influence, expectations, and conventions. Each writer holds a theory

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

In Joseph Harris’s chapter “Revising” which was originally published in his book, Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts in 2006, Harris emphasizes the importance of the revising process, how to revise and improve effectively, and informs us about the fact that revising is overlooked and rushed by writers today. He shares tips on how to effectively revise and demonstrates using excerpts within his chapters.

In Anne Lamott’s essay, “Shitty First Drafts,” she explains her writing philosophy of just getting ideas down on paper and then editing them later. While some disagree with this method, such as George Dila in his critical response, “Rethinking the Shitty First Draft,” many writers employ this technique to not only better their writing, but to overcome obstacles in the writing process. Even the most successful of writers will say that they actually hate writing, Lamott even compares it to pulling teeth. The intimidation of just starting to write becomes too much and leads writers to procrastinate. For many, an overwhelming, overbearing sense of perfectionism creeps in and creates anxiety and often lead to writer’s block. Everyone writes first drafts, but if a writer allows themselves to let go of all personal judgment and permits their writing to be “bad,” then they will most likely end up with great ideas that they did not even know were inside their heads. Once these ideas are allowed to flow out, then it becomes easier to visualize a realistic way of developing them into a full composition. By writing inferior first drafts, writers can focus on and express their ideas while overcoming the difficulties typically associated with the writing process.

The Maker’s Eye written by Donald Murray is intended for any writer out there and people who want to improve their writing. He wrote the maker's eye to instruct writers on four of the five points of revision and editing. He tells his readers that the difference in attitude is the difference between amateur and professional. People must accept the criticism of others and be suspicious of that same criticism. Also if they must accept the appreciation of other people then they should be even more suspicious of their writing. Donald Murray explains that most writers

Everyone knows what writing is to one extent or another, but we all have different definitions of how it should be done and varying degrees of seriousness about the art. We all have a process of writing, but each is unique to ourselves and our own experiences. Annie Dillard and Stephen King are two well known authors who have published many pieces, two of which describe how they view the writing process and let their readers get a peek of what goes on through their minds when they write. These two pieces are Dillard’s The Writing Life and King’s “What Writing Is.”

In addition to reviewing and rewriting, one example that Murray portrays is the lack of motivation that most students these days have when it comes to writing more than one draft and re-editing or rewriting. In the article, Murray mentions Peter F. Drucker who stated that his first draft was “the zero draft.” I believe when students hear they have to write multiple drafts, they usually give up by the end of the first draft. Most of the time, the first draft is where students put down all the ideas they find or have, however with more drafts students aren’t really intrigued in finding more information. Particularly in elementary school, my teachers made

Typically, when most people think about the writing process they think of terms such as a ‘thesis statement,’ developing an outline, body paragraphs, conclusion; it’s imperative to view writing this way. We have only been taught THIS way of writing almost directly after we learned how to spell words—you decide what to write about, usually specified in the thesis statement, then you write a series of paragraphs entailing how you came to this conclusion. Finally, you conclude your paper by restating exactly what it was you spent an entire essay writing about. And most people will go their entire lives believing that is the formula for an effective, well thought-out work of literature. But how often do we go back and read through our writing and completely resent how amateur and forced it sounds? This is usually a direct result of a lack of revision within a work. Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a change or a set of changes that corrects or improves something” and “a new version of something that has been corrected or changed,” Revision is not a common word we think of when writing—this raises a serious question: how should you revise? In response to this to this, research was conducted to find a general view as to the significance of revision within various individual’s writing processes. These results, along with research from several academic articles provide a clear description as to where revision could be

In this paper, I will use Murray in order to show that revision is a good method for writers including myself.

In the essay, "Freewriting" by Peter Elbow discussed the most effective way to improve one's writing would be through the act of freewriting on a regular basis. Freewriting allows someone to express himself or herself. Regardless, if what he or she wrote down coincide with what was previously mentioned. As Peter Elbow once stated: "Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing (Elbow par. 1)." With that being said, freewriting doesn't allow there to be any corrections made by anyone, not even the writer themselves.

Changing isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but in writing it is necessary. Whether it’s changing your genre; which includes style, form, focus, tone, word choice. Or changing it to fit a new workplace which is explained in Wardle's essay Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces. Roozens Tracing Trajectories of Practice: Repurposing in One Student’s Developing Disciplinary Writing Process is also an example of how change affects someone's writing. Change is crucial for people in any new or different environment.

For me, it has been the best writing technique and never fails to get my creative juices flowing. Despite trying the many other pre-writing approaches, such as clustering and outlining, freewriting is ultimately the tactic I prefer over all the others. In the first draft of this essay, I made sure to shut out all distractions, opened a new and blank word document, thought of my audience and started writing everything that came to my mind. If it had anything involved with the face-to-face and face-to-computer programs, I would write it down. Often, I approach academic freewriting as I approach personal writing, especially when it so early in the writing process for an essay which will be a five-week

It didn’t take long for my attention to be roused, Linda Spencer speaks about writers and inventors in the Introduction to her book, “Writing well in the 21st century: The five essentials” (Spencer, L. 2014. Pp2-3). The example she gives is of an inventor working on an inventions. He doesn’t stop at his first model, typically that model will be revised many times over to get the perfect creation before it is put to use. This brought to mind Steve Jobs, he didn’t stop after he made his first computer. He reworked it again and again until he felt that it was perfect. Then he continued to develop more products, even revising these products over and over again. After a few minutes of thinking on this, I realized what she was meaning about writers working on their own works of art. Yes, they will need to be reviewed, revised, and edited multiple times before it could be called a final project or paper. When she mentions that a sentence can be re written at

Furthermore, Elbow uses another strategy to explain the usefulness of freewriting: analogizing it with speaking. He explains how one’s voice and one’s words connects to an inner power and exhibits it proudly. Elbow states this inner strength can only be displayed if one is completely proud and confident in