Essay Assignment #1: Option #1 final

Revising has never really been something I have ever looked forward to. After I finish the writing assignment, or even before, I don’t say to my self, “yes, now the fun revising part begins!” Nancy Sommers’ article “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” discusses the different ways in which “student” writers and “experienced” writers go about their revising. Basically, she goes on to say that student writers tend to say what they need to say and then go back to only change or rearrange words and to correct any other grammar related mishaps. Personally, I don’t think this true. I believe it really depends on whether or not the student is interested in the subject he or she is writing about, as apposed to just being given an assignment and told to get it done by a certain date. That is more of a brainless activity for a robot. It is only when she talks about the “experienced” writer that she emphasizes them as using revision as a way to rework their ideas and thoughts within their writing. I am not arguing against that by any means, I just think that perhaps her view towards the student writers is bias. Like I said, I think it depends on the subject of the writing, but I think that my writing process tends to fall somewhere in between her “student” and “experienced” writer comparison, but I’ll let you be the judge of that based on my experiences.

In the past I used the words: edit, revise, re-write, go-over, etc. just like these “student” writers that she talks about. However, I think that because my experience as a graphic designer is growing, that I have switched to using the words “proof” or “proofing.” I believe this is because no design is ever 100% correct and completed the very first time it is created. Designers always make thumbnail sketches and proofs (or “shitty rough drafts” as Anne Lamott so eloquently put it in her article) of their work so the client can see it and make any changes or provide any input they see fit. I may not have completely adapted this idea to my writing; however, I have at least adapted the name for which I call it when I do revise.

Another way in which I’ve learned to “revise” is, believe it or not, through skateboarding. Much like these “experienced” writers that Nancy Somers talks about, skateboarders, in my eyes, can be considered revisionists as well. I’ve been skateboarding for the better half of my life and can say that whenever I’m doing a trick, down a set of stairs or over an obstacle, I always keep trying the trick until I have landed it perfectly. This is especially true when the trick is being filmed. I’m sure the same is true for writers if their work is going to be published. Even if I have landed the trick 5 times in a row, I’m not satisfied with it until I finally land on the board just right and roll away smoothly. It can take upwards of an hour of constantly retrying the same trick over and over. If that’s not revision, I’m not sure what is.

So, those are two specific ways that I’ve been taught, or rather that I have learned to revise. I’m pretty sure I adapt that to my writing because even right now, I jumped back to this sentence after I had already written this next one coming up. However, with writing, and in general with school, I was always taught to say what I needed to say and then go back and reread what I have. The perfectionist part of me doesn’t always let me do that though since I just admitted to going back and revising/adding sentences where I felt was needed. It’s definitely a constant process of revising as I’m writing, just as these experienced writers said that it is a “constant process” and that they could “go on forever” revising.

Maybe I read it wrong, but from what I understand about Sommers’ article is that maybe I’m a combination of the student writers as well as the experienced ones. She says that the experienced writer takes their reader in to account more so than the student writers. Granted, the parts I revise the most are in fact my grammar and word choice, like these fellow student writers, however, I also take in to consideration what I’m actually writing in a way that best conveys the ideas I’m trying to get across to the reader. I focus on the micro issues while paying (at least some) attention to the “global issues of argument and audience.” I suppose you could say I took what the academic world has taught me, with regards to making sure that I speak/write in cohesive sentences, while also taking lessons from life, which that has taught me to express my ideas clearly enough for my audience to understand, so that they too may roll away smoothly and understand my point.