My Revision Strategy: Some Lessons From The Assembly Line

In “They Say I Say”, chapter 11 may perhaps be the most important chapter in the entire book. Chapter 11 emphases on how important it is to revise and edit your writing. Some students may say that reading over you essay and getting somebody to edit it is pointless but I think that it’s a vital step. It’s simple. Revision and editing could turn your awful essay into a superior essay. When I read over my work I always consider changing it to improve it, should I add more complex sentences? “What [do I] need to do to make it better” (Graff 139). In addition, I would constantly find grammar and punctuation errors that weakened my essay. After I guaranteed that there were no more grammar mistakes my student editor would find one.

Harris argues that revision is overlooked and undervalued because, as readers, we see texts in their final form and do not see the “hesitations, repetition, digressions…and flat-out mistakes of earlier drafts” (442). He then supports this idea when he demonstrates in a draft, by a student named Abhijit Mehta, the difference between editing and revising. He comments, “at the mundane level, he

The revision strategy for myself that will be most effective for writing this essay would be to

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

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

Metaphor’s for Revision The course of constituting a credible paper by using the writing process lies directly in what the author considers important. The writer’s ideas must relate to the reader in a particular way to encapsulate why distinct ideas must stay, and why some need to go. Barbara Tomlinson gives insight to how the revision process is essential to the success of any writer, while giving various examples that apply to what she claims as a metaphor by which every type of person can agree with. Tomlinson’s text correlates firmly with what Lakoff and Johnson state in their text pertaining to the conceptual mind and how we develop metaphors.

On the Rhetorical Essay, I choose to write about Blackbird by the Beatles. This essay was pretty essay compared to the other two essays. When deciding what song to write about I looked on the internet for songs that had multiple interpretations. I came across the song “Blackbird” and I knew this was the song. When writing this essay, I struggled with adding the musical element portion to my essay because there wasn’t a music video; it was Paul McCartney singing it live on stage. On the Intro/Main point I did pretty well an effective hook that catches the reader's attention. On the other hand, I also was average on my thesis , making a general interpretation about the song. So when writing this revision I can improve the clarity and specificity of either aspects. On the body paragraphs, I clearly address a specific element of the song and I connect my main

Sommers explains to the reader the mindset of revision in the eyes of college freshman vs. experienced writers. Based on her research she was able to establish that the term “revision” has two drastic meanings when it comes to experienced vs. inexperienced writers. The college freshmen referred to revision as simply rewording the preexisting writing in their first draft. Sommers explains that the “scale of concern” for the college students was “deletion, substitution, addition, and rewording.” (380) In contrast, the experienced writers had a very different mindset when it came to their revision process. They explained when revising they focused on finding “shape” and “form” to their writing. To further explain, they do not have simply one rough daft that becomes a final draft, but rather they have numerous drafts that they continuously dig through to develop “structural patterns.” (384) In comparison to the college freshmen their revision process isn’t just rewording, it’s continuously reframing each draft. Through this research Sommers explains to the reader the way revisions should be, and the areas that people lack with misconceptions that the word “revising” simply means rewording but in Sommers’ opinion it’s a total revamping

Throughout the revision process, I had the opportunity to discover my voice as a writer and engage in the conversation that is academic writing. In my final paper, I tried to reinforce the idea of a roadmap to guide my reader along my thought process. During my Embedded Writing Consultant appointment, I walked through the guidelines of a roadmap with Amarachi, and she emphasized the importance of a roadmap in reorganizing my paper. I realized that I could clearly articulate what I wanted to state by explaining it to her out loud, but when I translated such ideas to my paper, the main point oftentimes became lost. You mentioned something similar in your feedback, as many of the points I made did not connect to my central claim. Recognizing that I needed to emphasize my plan and then carry it out, I rewrote my paper with this in mind.

The discussion assignments between week 4 and week 7 have taught me to view my work in a much more meticulous way than ever before. In activity 4.1, I realized through my colleagues post that the most abrasive or controversial argument is not the most effective, and in my reply I had mentioned the gratitude I had for her insight that inspired a shift in perspective. This in turn, effected how I wrote my thesis in my introductory paragraph; incidentally, I was not successful, because I did not apply what I had learned correctly. Nevertheless, the lesson I learned from both my colleague as well as my introductory paragraph have made me a better writer, because now I approach my writing with the reminder of stating what will be discussed without

Joseph Williams and Lawrence McEnerney, in the third chapter of Writing in College, offer strategies for revising a paper, including suggestions regarding the point (or thesis), the organizational structure of the a paper, the evidence, and the attitude of the argument as a whole. The first step of the revision process “is intended to ensure that the beginning and end of your paper cohere with each other” (14). To accomplish this first step, Williams and McEnerney recommend isolating the point in the introduction and conclusion, and ensuring these sections communicate the same argument. Williams and McEnerney also suggest two different methods to communicate a point: point-first, in which the introduction contains a full statement of the argument

For the revision project, I needed to make more changes to this paper due to not fully getting my point across or because I needed to add some more information to my paper. The first thing that I had to work out was my title. I read the beginning of my paper again and decided on a better suited title that would fit into what my paper was mostly about. Next, I had to fix a sentence that contradicted what I had said earlier in my paper. Another big issue in my paper was the placement of the story of Dylan Roof. To fix this mistake I used parts of my essay that talked about Dylan Roof to form a back story closer to the beginning of my paper. Some of the other sentences that I had written originally made more sense in my mind and when I put them on paper they made it sound like I was saying something different, so I changed the wording in those sentences.

The weakness of my essay on Hawthorne’s characterization of Dimmesdale included a few awkward phrases. Some of the essay also features bombastic language similar to Hawthorne. However, the elaborate words and phrases are indicative of my writing style. One revision to the essay includes changing “As stated by” to “According to” which is a less awkward phrase. I also changed “ransacking” to “forbidding” as it makes more sense contextually in the sentence. Other minute revisions include changing “proclaims” to “states”, and deleting “This quote which” from a sentence to enhance the fluidity of the essay. Finally, “falsely seen” is considered an awkward phrase, and therefore, I changed it to “perceived”. Overall, the essay required only miniscule

In my peer review process I saw a lot of different ways I could edit my own paper just by looking at my peers papers. In the letter to my friend Sara brought up that maybe I should bring up a few more examples on other clean transportation ways to further back up my thesis. Jordan pointed out in my letter to Times magazine I should be more specific on where the 5% of the federal budget comes from, like where we could cut back at. An effective way that I will keep in my paper is the way I’m trying to convince my audience. I’m using facts to sway them to my side, you cant really argue with facts. One thing that I will revise in my paper is my thesis in my letter to my friend, my main topic will stay the same its just that I will revise my writing

I started my revision by creating a better introduction to introduce the author and the subject of his article. After reviewing my essay many