SQR 3

Vanessa Magdaleno
ENG 1301.28
Instructor: Trang Phan
9/7/10

“Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”

SUMMARY:
Nancy Sommers. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.” College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 378-388

In Sommers’ article, she views that the reason theories about writing fail, is because they focus on speech, and not on revision. If writing and speech are the same in the sense that they are continually moving forward, then there is no need for revision. According to Sommers, revision is “a sequence of changes in a composition—changes which are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work.” This means that revision is not only done after a composition is written, but it is going on throughout the entire process.
She then contrasts students’ ideas about revision with those of experienced adult writers. Students saw revising as a way to re-word their sentences. They’d replace “dull” words with more lively ones. However, experienced adult writers’ visions changed throughout their writing. They tended to “re-vision the work, and to use the revision process as a means of discovering meaning.” They wouldn’t only rewrite sentences, but rewrite sections when thinking about their audience and situation.
Sommers argues that students revise vaguely because they’ve been taught to revise “in a consistently narrow and predictable way,” not because they are unwilling. She ends her essay encouraging student writers to see writing as a way of discovery.

QUESTION:
What were some surprising differences evident between student writers and experienced adult writers?

RESPONSE:
In Sommers’ research, the only changes in the ideas of students’ essays occurred when they were working on their introductory paragraphs. All the other changes observed were when students made were at the word level. The main focus was on changing vocabulary. They replaced “dull” words with more exciting words. Students saw revising as a way to reword their essays. I myself have encountered this behavior. I always try to replace my words that I repeat with more lively words that I find in the dictionary. When the students who were students were interviewed, they confessed that they would rather not make large changes because they don’t know the proper strategies to do so.
In contrast, the experienced writers use first drafts to discover meaning and find their focus or argument. Their main focus was shaping their ideas. They then would elaborate on the ideas in their drafts. The writers’ main goal for their drafts was to form their opinion and their argument. Then in the second draft is where they develop and structure their paper.
Also, another big difference in the way students and experienced writers develop their papers is in the way they consider their audience. Experienced writers “imagine the reader whose existence and whose expectations influence their revision process”. Students, just like me, want to fit the topic and just finish the paper. We don’t worry about who’s reading it and what they expect.
I was surprised at the realization of the difference of how students lack of utilizing our writing, the way experienced writers do. Sommers states the good writing should create controversy, which I believe students are too afraid to create, unlike experienced writers, who focus more strongly on the perceptions readers will get from his/her paper.