Sommers Response Paper

Furthermore, according to Duncan Carter’s article, Five Myths About Writing, “Years of well-intentioned English teachers have responded to students’ first drafts as if they were supposed to have been perfect. Combined with a pedagogy which suggests that revision is a form of punishment, it is not hard to see where students get the idea that good writers don’t have to revise” (Carter, 82). Growing up, high school teachers make it seem as if revising and editing your paper is the worst thing ever. Any student who worked long and hard on their assignment and turned it in to get revised, would hate to receive a paper back with nothing but red marks and errors written all over them. This initially gave people the mindset of forgetting about editing their work if all it did was tear them down and point out their mistakes.

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.

In his article "Coming to Terms", Joseph Harris takes the opportunity to share his knowledge with his readers and discuss things to keep in mind when drafting, revising, and editing assignments. In this specific chapter, Harris explains the revision process and suggest possible preliminary steps to take when formulating an essay. He emphasizes revision as a knowledge practice, in which there is a consistent set of questions you can ask yourself at any point while working on a draft (page 99). In addition, Harris refers the term "writer's project" throughout the section.

Lamott compares the process of writing with the painful process of pulling the teeth. She believes that in order to produce a high quality writing, the author must first put together all their ideas and thoughts in form of the “child draft”. This draft determines the flow and dimension

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 art of writing is a complex and difficult process. Proper writing requires careful planning, revision, and proofreading. Throughout the past semester, the quality of my writing has evolved significantly. At first, I struggled with the separation of different types of paragraphs, and I found writing them laborious. Constant practice, however, has eliminated many of my original difficulties, and helped to inspire confidence in my skills. As a collegiate writer, my strength lies in my clear understanding of the fundamentals of writing, while my primary weakness is proofreading my own work.

Murray (1917-2006) was a scholar, journalist, and author among many other things. Murray wrote the essay “The Maker’s Eye: Revising your own Manuscript”, which was published in a magazine called The Writer. “The Maker’s Eye” explains why it is beneficial to revise no matter if you are a beginner or experienced. “As a word is changed, cut, or added, as a construction is rearranged, all the words used before that moment and all those that follow that moment must be considered and reconsidered.” This means when you changed any word in your writing that is the time to look at previously written words, but also consider the new words you are

Within the past eight weeks, I have realized my strengths and weaknesses within the writing process. I have realized that I do not utilize the first step within the writing process of prewriting. However, for the drafting, revising, and polishing steps of the writing process, I am very familiar and use additional resources to strengthen the writing assignment. I create multiple drafts, which includes revising and polishing in each step. Therefore, I use all three of these steps in multiple drafts as I reach the final product for

Once a writer has completed the writing portion of an essay, it is often considered to be done. However, no one, even a professional writer, writes a perfect draft on the first attempt; in fact, it is often this revision stage of writing where a good writer separates himself from other, less experienced writers. A good writer understands the importance of revision and spends as much time as possible during this stage to craft the essay into the ideal state. Moreover, what exactly revision is? Revision refers to the changes that occur in an essay once

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

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

Writing is similar to the construction of a building. The structural beams of the building must be put into place to support the underlying information. Carr is able to provide support for his article by connecting his ideas together

Breaking down a revision technique by discovering what it highlights and hides as well as it entails will greatly benefit the understanding of a revision metaphor. My metaphor “Revision is fishing” helps myself understand how I approach revision and the steps necessary to take to make a good

Adult Writers” of Nancy Sommers. Just like the student writers of Sommers, Rebecca and I were “redoing the paper--cleaning up the paper and crossing out, looking at something and saying no that has to go, no that is not right”(46). Due to time constraints during our sessions, Rebecca would not want to waste time trying to figure out how she could rephrase a

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary