Five Myths About Writing Analysis

In the reading “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” by Nancy Sommers, truly believes revision in writing and even speech isn’t a main strategy absent and for example we should be focusing on beginning sentences with a conjunction or ending a sentence with a preposition. Sommer, did continuously research on student writers for instance in Paragraph 6, 20 freshman at Boston and Oklahoma University with SAT scores range from 450-600 and dour main revision problems found to be was deletion, substitution, addition and reordering. Students advised Sommers, there term for revision is scratch out, do over again, reviewing, marking out and slashing out as for experienced writers they use a more proper term such as rewriting and revising. A valid point Sommers, points out is that students listen and just take teachers instructions with that being said teachers aren’t making revision a requirements. Students writers use a linear model there teacher provides while experienced writers use all theories and strategies of holistic perspective and recursive process using a

This means that revising should be the last step in the writing process, one that comes after both the first and second drafts. This only allows students to find obvious mistakes, rather than more deep conceptual mistakes. Students need to broaden their outlook on writing instead of looking for surface level issues. But for experienced adult writers, revising is more of finding a pattern and getting a better understanding of the paper. It’s apparent here how student writers understand the revision process as opposed to experienced

In Nancy Sommers’ article, “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”, she addresses how to different groups, students and experienced writers, go about revising their paper. Sommers method of taking the results of her experience could have been much more effective if she would have added details about certain thing. How did the group’s final papers turn out? Where there significant difference in the final papers, and if so what were they. Did both group turn up with nicely written papers? These questions would have helped to understand the importance of revision toward the creation of the paper, then just the revision stage itself. Sommers mention of how most students repeat themselves in their writings by just

Have you ever given much thought about revising your paper? We correct the spelling, fix the grammatical errors, and give it one last read through then we hand it in. Revision is one of the most important pieces when writing an essay, but do we overlook it? I most certainly did until I read Barbra Tomlinson’s essay, “Tuning, Tying, and Training Texts: Metaphors for Revision”. Tomlinson opened my eyes and I see a whole new light when it comes to revising my papers.

I observed Dr. Jenny Crisp’s English 98 class on January 19, 2016. The class began at 12:15 PM and lasted until 1:20 PM. The room that the class met in was on the third floor of the Liberal Arts building, and the room had individual computers for each of the students to work on. The class was divided into two sections on this day because Dr. Crisp had scheduled an introductory visit to the writing lab, which began at 12:45. Prior to the visit to the writing lab, Dr. Crisp guided the class in a discussion on the topic of revision in regards to the first paper that the class had submitted. The stages of revision were discussed and the students were shown where additional help could be found within the book. Dr. Crisp told the students that the reason that their grades on the essays were significantly lower was because the essays were lacking in detail and had Type One errors. She stated that revision is important and that could help bring up the grades on the essays.

The fourth course goal is “understand, identify and analyze specific rhetorical choices of academic writers”. The assignment done to show that I have met this goal is reading and annotating “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and experienced Adult Writers” by Nancy sommers. By reading and annotating, it allowed me to see how academic writers choose to write. After reading it was clear there was a difference between students and experienced writers about how they choose to revision. Before this class I would dread revisioning I connected more with the student in the article when doing this assignment. They would developed an uncomfortable relationship with the word revision. They would cringe at the sight of seeing parts of their papers

“Writing for Teachers,” an article written by Peter Elbow, opens a world of thought not seen by many students and teachers alike. They, including myself, have fallen into a trap of formats and teacher pleasing. Elbow excellently describes the circumstances of the symbiotic relationship between the teachers and students. He describes the scenario where teachers grade papers upon what they find is most similar to what they have written, and the students aspire to please their teachers. A student’s writing, though it could be good for the intended audience, is graded poorly for being too dissimilar from how the teacher likes writing. These students learn to start “writing for teachers” so they get a better grade. These students develop a very bad habit of writing to please the teachers so much so that they never can write for an audience. Students that

All throughout the years of being an English student, have been truly challenging for me. When writing essays, overthinking on what to write on always ended in a mess, either I went off topic or just forgot the prompt. Therefore, the teacher got after me all the time. After writing an essay, the teacher will tell the students to give our essays to another student, so they can proofread it and grade it. As I read another student’s essay individually, I will just go off reading, without finding any misspelled words or any punctuation errors. Then, after every student finished proofreading the essays, they handed yours back. Whenever I got my paper back, I will investigate all the blue ink, the highlights, little paragraphs in the margins, question

Since English is my second language, I always had trouble writing. In the beginning, I did not enjoy writing. However, as I started to spend more and more time reading books, writing essays for classes, I started to get better at it. To me writing has many forms. Moreover, it is expressed in variety of ways. There are times where I always think about what is good writing or what makes someone a good writer. To me good writing is something that is clear and simple to understand. If I am not able to understand what the writer is trying to get across, I will read if few more time. Even after that, I am not able to understand or fully understand what I am reading then that is bad writing. I think everyone should know how to write or at least learn

When writing I forget to use commas, but now after writing several papers I don’t overlook them anymore. Another problem I had was that sometimes when I have to complete a word requirement or a page requirement, I add some fluff. I use some words that are useless in the essay, just to meet the requirement. Writing is just more than just meeting requirements, it takes time and effort. Before this class, I never really used to revise. Getting back my first grade, I realized that revision is important. This is what I learned about myself as a writer and with this class I have improved on some of these

Heavy grammar and style comments on a student’s early draft show that surface is the most important part. Some problems students find include word repetition, and when students don’t face the problems, they may replace the offending words with synonyms (Haar & Horning, 2006). When teachers reviewed my early drafts on past papers especially in writing classes, I found the process overwhelming. In previous writing classes I have used word repetition and synonyms in my papers. Revision means correcting repetition, better word usage, and to recognize synonyms aren’t always good word replacements with draft revisions. Using synonyms means adding a replacement word which essentially means the same, except the word may sound or look better. Less repetition and synonym usage is better when correcting drafts, because there are other alternatives. Also in Revision: History, Theory, and Practice, the chapter Definitions and Distinctions also talks about revision, images, and voices. “Revision means movement: turning from self to reader; drafting up and down, out and in; heeding interior and exterior voices. These images of movement witness to the active, fluid thinking of revision, its creativeness, and its multiple, interconnected tasks” (Haar, 2006, 14). Revising and editing are just as important as the written words themselves and the content

One day I got the phone call from my friend. She said my Instructor provide a topic and need to write a note on that particular topic. She had written and asked me to check that one. When I got time, I checked that note and uploaded on paper checking website for grammar mistakes or any plagiarism. I found there was 75% plagiarism. Immediately I called her and explain that what she has done is not good for her carrier, if you really like that web site, you can use for your references but when you write, use your own words and thoughts. That is the correct attitude to write because we can learn more vocabularies, writing pattern. My friend was so happy to know about plagiarism and keep telling me, ‘you save me.’

Education Northwest created “6+1 Traits of Writing” as a method for teaching and assessing writing. This model consists of six “writing” qualities, ideas, voice, organization, conventions, word choice, and fluency, and one “appearance” quality, presentation. The main theme and the details of the writing are presented in the “ideas” of the piece. The “ideas” describe how clearly the writer shows his thoughts. The internal structure of the writing is presented through the “organization”, which lays out the sequence of the story, its strength and logic, and the connections in the written material. The writer expresses his feelings trough the “voice”. The “voice” distinguishes the writer as who he is. Through the “word choice”, the writer articulates

When an author writes a piece of work, they go through several drafts before they feel

In examining recent literature on the topic of “editing” in the writing process, three areas appear to be of some concern in dealing with this issue: 1) The true definition of editing and the editing process, 2) The perceived role and responsibilities of the teacher and students, and 3) Effective editing strategies that will increase student learning. In order to truly implement editing strategies that will impact the learner, the first two areas must be addressed.