In ” Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer,” Carol Berkenkotter describes a “lab” that she performed on Donald M. Murray to better understand how professional writer’s revise their work; in “Response of a Laboratory Rat–or, Being Protocoled,” Murray discusses not only how he felt about being a “lab rat”, but also what he took away from the experience. Starting in the result section (Berkenkotter), the author began inserting excerpts primarily from the audio tapes Murray recorded while he was working. I personally found these excerpts to be a “space waster”–in other words, a space that the author could have written more about her results or simply not written anything at all. Even though the excerpts are
For example, many individuals “don’t know that Thoreau wrote seven drafts of Walden, or that Hemingway rewrote the last page of Farewell to Arms some thirty-five times” (Carter, 82). In addition to Thoreau and Hemingway, author George Orwell, took three years before successfully writing his book and five years before publishing it. In between these times there was even talk about calling the book The Last Man in Europe instead of 1984. In conclusion, “As wonderful as it may be to imagine that an academic or scientific article can reach a state of perfection when first written, this is highly unusual, and very few published authors consider their work perfect even after it has been carefully reviewed by them as well as their colleagues, proofreaders and editors, and appropriate revisions have been completed”
First drafts suck; the end. But the process is a requirement for great writing, one that many writers would be helpless without. The first draft is an exercise in brainstorming ideas; with no ideas, you can’t realistically write a paper. And that is why Lamott has come to terms with the process, whether she actually wanted to or not—“…I would eventually let myself trust the process—sort of, more or less.”
In Anne Lamott’s excerpt “Shitty First Drafts,” Lamott exhibits her own professional experience writing food reviews for California magazine while giving her audience a peek of her “shitty” drafting process. Lamott’s title is unique and not something you would expect to be reading in a college course. Nevertheless, this piece is effective in comforting the audience of students when it comes to writing drafts. Initially when I read the title I was uncertain what the content would be. However, after reading the first paragraph I understood the purpose behind “Shitty First Drafts”. Lamott’s purpose was to comfort her audience and does so almost immediately by saying “all good writers write shitty first drafts.” This statement alone sets a relaxed
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
In “Shitty First Drafts,” Anne Lamott illustrates the challenges and difficulties writers face while preparing to write their first drafts, by explaining many different examples and how to eliminate those issues and exceed into creating the “Shitty First Draft.” Anne Lamott’s use of figures of speech, narration, and audience appeals, teach the readers how to write their first draft. Lamott’s descriptive writing and use of details allows the readers to experience her struggles and compare that to themselves. “Even after I’d been doing this for years, panic would set in. I’d try to write a lead, but instead I’d write a couple of dreadful sentences, XX them out, try again, XX everything out, and then feel despair and worry settle on my chest like
Ordinarily the catch method required much of the writing for children to be mostly directed towards self-expression and often times lacked any sort of formal writing instruction. Consequently, those students who could not catch the vital information to be a successful writer often seemed to be left in the dust. Tyre’s article as well provides a constructed argument held by those who oppose the full implementation of this new writing method used at New Dorp, where Kelly Gallagher expresses her concern when writing is fully focused on analytical writing, that creative expression of students may be diminished. I believe that the use of this opposing argument, though not too lengthy, helps readers to also consider the backlash of this implementation of writing, but also provides an insight into how the pros compare to the hypothetical cons in this situation.
The disciplinary perspective Lamott is catering to most is creative writing and writings that have strict time limits. The authors discipline is creative writing when it comes to food reviews for her magazine company. Lamott believes that her situation can be used with all forms of disciplines. In addition to Lamott’s discipline, Baker’s writing perspective comes from a teaching or informative discipline. Baker is trying to help teachers learn effective teaching skills when it comes to writing. However, Johnsons discipline is strictly for psychology disciplines and how they can improve papers and grades all together. On the other hand, Makenzie’s discipline is in the study of biology and wants to explain why writing is important in that field of study.
In “Decisions and Revisions” by Carol Berkenkotter, she was doing an experiment on unskilled writers. The main point of this article is doing a lab on Donald Murray. She wanted to see how experienced writers edited their work. She met Murray at a conference on College Composition. He introduced himself when he walked into the conference, and she asked him if he could be in a naturalist's study; He said yes. Berkenkotter had been watching him write and she had been listening to his daily recordings. Murray then discusses how he felt during the experiment.
After doing some linear stage models, the three negotiates the fact that academic and professional is considered “complex” (24). Furthermore, they all agree that “academic and professional writers develop a sense of rhetorical purpose as the process unfolds” (24) and “any research must be seen as being both “strategic” and “heuristic” (24).
The book “Bird by Bird” is published in 1994, telling readers on how to write or improve their writing. Anne Lamott has publised books and articles as the food reviewer of California magazine before it folded. The fact that the writer has a lot of experience makes the audience believe that what she is saying is most likely true and would believe what Lamott had experienced is a normal occurrence as a writer. Looking at Lamott’s style of writing, it is really easy to see that she is a funny person as she joked about how she knew one person who writes “elegant first drafts” (Lamott Par. 1) and how she and her writer friends doesn’t like the person much. She also mentioned the false thoughts about successful writers doesn’t go through the really awful drafts of a rookie writer.
Communication in writing skills for the past six weeks were standards information on different sorts of sources for rapidly flowing needs of today’s writers. This form of writing shows the role of strategies in writing on subjects. It demonstrated contracts between oral communication and written communication. The main ideas in this course discovery, objectives, critical thinking, and tension, valuing course resources time management, and cooperating with others (Giordano 2012). However, the skills for effective writing produce volumes of master’s level for the required resources in this way.
Arguably, there are situations where the tone in the text betrays the author’s insistent perspective concerning writing. For instance, the author argues that a student can pass through the writing process successfully if the teacher chooses to shut up and allow the student to write. In reviewing this particular text, one may argue about the choice of words, however, the tonne also elucidates the author’s viewpoint on the involvement of teachers in the writing process. One of the questions the author has prompted but not answered is how the education system as a whole can be transformed to embrace the concept of writing being a process rather than a product. While the idea is sensible and well thought, its applicability in the education system is a challenge, which the author has not highlighted despite writing being under the umbrella of
In the article “Shitty First Drafts,” the author, Anne Lamott, observes and comments on the flaws laced in having a worthy piece of writing. Through her experiences, Lamott demonstrates that writing does not come easily, comparing writing to “pulling teeth.” Generally, she encourages that every writer should engage in writing a shitty first draft because the writer will eventually follow through in producing a better second draft and possibly, a “terrific third
“No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader”, writing with surprise is a central theme in “Writing and Reading for Surprise”, by Donald Murray, a professor at the University of New Hampshire. Murray claims that an author must first write what they do not expect to write in order to find their own style and voice, the motivation to write and the joy that comes with it. This is a problem, he says that plagues college students, as many have not yet discovered this art which causes many to have a distaste for writing. Murray uses his own personal experience with writing and how he first came upon writing with surprise to demonstrate how it change his style and gave him joy and motivation to write every day and to show how it can do the same for students. In order to do this Murray uses ethos, pathos and logos in order to prove his point and relates to his audience specifically.
“The bottom line is that I like my first drafts to be blind, unconscious, messy efforts; that is what gets me the best material” (Egan). Egan says that when writing, she just lets her words flow regardless of how it may turn out, if it sounds bad, or whether it contains multiple mistakes or grammatical errors. For Egan, getting the work done is all that matters first. Once she gets the first draft done, then she worries about critiques. The same attitude that Egan portrays in her quote is similar to the attitude that Anne Lamott holds in her article Shifty First Drafts. Anne Lamott explicates that like all writers, she also finds it a challenge at times to generate her first writing drafts. In her article she looks to show her audience—writers—that it’s okay to struggle with first drafts because “very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve don’t it”. Overall, Lamott just wants writers to know that “almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts”, so regardless of the horrible results that may surface from the first draft, writers just need to focus on just getting any and all ideas down on paper. Connecting with her audience, Lamott uses heartfelt personal examples and experiences alongside ethos; which aids her in offering advice via everyday word choice that is placed in a sequential order.