SQR3

Lisa Marie Lopez
English 1301
Ms. Phan
September 13,2010
Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers
Nancy Sommers. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, NO. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 378-388
Summary:
The article that was written by Nancy Sommers talks about the meaning of revision and how it differs between a student writer and an experienced adult writer. She speaks of how the process of revision has changed. In this article, Sommers compares and contrasts the difference between speech and writing. The article says that speech cannot be revised like something that is written. Nancy talks about how she analyzed student writers and how their way of revision is very different from that of experienced writers. The student writers mainly focused on the revision of words. They thought that taking out, adding, and switching high vocabulary words would help revise and edit their essay paper. Nancy realized that the students worried too much about repeating themselves. She analyzed that the students tend to revise their work, but end up skipping errors that have been created on their paper. Nancy realized that the students worried too much about repeating themselves. The reason why students tend to ignore or overlook an error is because they can’t seem to “hear” the mistake they have made. The process in which a person can actually spot the mistake is when they diagnose and dig deep to find the problem. Basically, the inexperienced students tend to have tunnel vision, meaning that they keep things simple and follow basic rules. Student writers don’t think outside the box like experienced writers. The article talks about how experienced writers go into depth with their revising and editing.
Question:
What is the purpose for this article? Does it teach you anything?
The purpose for this article is that it is written to inform people about the difference of a student writer and an experienced writer. Its purpose is also so that the reader could get some tips and help with whatever is needed to revise and edit their paper. This article shows the mistakes that students make when revising and editing their essays and it also gives examples and some details on the ways student writers and the experienced writers work. One thing from the article that describes the ways of a student writer would be when the student ignores his or her mistakes. This helps the reader understand that we must look carefully when we write our essays. The article teaches me so much because it explains to me how students tend to be very ignorant and tend to have some mistakes on their essay. Another teaching that the article shows us is how the experienced writer digs deep within and gets a story out of many things. Experienced writers are very open minded and creative, while the “student writer has tunnel vision and they tend to keep things simple and follow basic rules.”

SQR 3

Leonardo Avila
Eng. 1301.28
Trang Phan
9/12/10

Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers
Sommers, Nancy. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”
CCC 31.4 (1980): 378-88

Summary

Sommars’s article shows how many forms of writing processes were through research but they all seem to ignore research on revision. She demonstrates how some form of today’s linear writing processes fail to take into account the revision portions of writing a paper. Sommers used a case study to get an approach of what it was that student and experienced writers did when they revised their papers. Sommers noticed that the majority of the students would not “use the terms revision or rewriting.” The students seemed to use words such as “Scratching out and cutting out” or “Marking Out” when they referred to revising a paper. It appeared that students believed that by either changing a word and/or phrase would make their paper seem better and considered a finished product. When Sommers studied the way experienced writers revised their paper she came to a much different situation. The experience writers seemed to always use “structural expressions such as “finding a framework,” “a pattern,” or “a design for their argument”. Experienced writers would view and describe the revision process as a recursive one with “different levels or cycles”. If students would “seek the dissonance of discovery”, they could very well understand what must be done during the revision process.

Question

In the early years of your education, did you ever revise your papers as the students writers in the article did?

Response

To tell the truth I did. I suppose that almost every essay that I ever did in high school mainly involved me either using different words or changing phrases when I would revise my paper. The reason I would do this I guess was more or less because I found it very useful in a way where I didn’t have the felling that I completely changed what I was writing about. I guess you can say that I’m somewhat arrogant in the fact that I believe that when I finish a paper its perfect even though it’s just the draft, apart from the grammar error which I’m sure I could’ve made. The only times I consider revising my paper is when I turn the essay in and our teachers would say to fix all errors we made. (I would not revise at all when we as a class would use peer response. Mainly because I did not care what they had to say due to the fact, they had less experience than our teachers did.) I would revise the paper, but found myself in a state of utmost difficulty because I had no idea what to change apart from grammar errors. I would turn in what I thought would be a revised essay. My teachers would look at my papers and see that I made very little changes. I suppose one of the reasons I would not revise was because of the lack of motivation I had to do things, which teachers asked. My teachers would always tell me that I would make great essays and wish I could write more, but I did not know how. I guess it is because my mind works like a car with no driver. It runs in only one direction and only when the driver ( I guess its my conscience) is in the car do I know what direction I am going and that’s when I’m able to write, but when my teachers tell my to revise it the driver is gone or has at least bailed out of the car. Therefore, I could not really go more in depth with my essay and discover what it was that I was writing about like the experience writers and only do what the student writers did.

SQR3: Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers

Alyssa Vasquez

ENG 1301.28

Intructor:Trang Phan

9/12/10

SQR3:Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers

Neubert, Gloria A., and Sally J McNelis. “Peer Response: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions.” The English Journal, Vol. 79, No. 5 (Sep., 1990), pp. 52-56

Summary:
Revision Strategies are being used less by students because of the way that we are taught to use a certain writing process. The current models of the writing process have directed attention away from revision. When student writers write, we follow a model to compose an essay in stages, and in each stage we based it on a certain topic that elaborate or explain in detail the main topic. Since we use one form writing, we assure ourselves that the essay explain the topic in a good form without any mistakes, so we don’t revise. Mostly students don’t use the term revision or rewriting because the only changes they make on an essay is either changing a word or switching words around in a sentence. As for the experienced writers, revising and idea or topic is important to create a good quality essay. They often use structural expressions such as “finding a framework,” “a pattern,” or “a design” for their argument. Revision for the experienced writers is a way to put all their scattered thoughts and their structure argument in order, because when they write their first draft it’s just a mixture of thoughts forming an essay but not in order, so they use the revision strategies.

Question:
Why do we have to take revision into account when creating an essay, but sometimes we don’t?

Response:
Revising an essay is important because we are not perfect, so we are bound to make mistakes without quickly noticing them, or sometimes we don’t notice and think it sounds right. When someone revises your essay, it’s like getting a second opinion if your essay is well written, which is a big help to fix and revise your essay in a well manner. Student’s revision isn’t as elaborate as experienced writers, because students nowadays follow a certain method of writing that really doesn’t consider revising, but when they do revise it’s usually a deletion of a word or sentence that doesn’t make sense but as long as it goes with the topic, revision is not the word they use. Since students follow a model to compose an essay in stages, they make sure that it follows the model. The students understand the revision process as a rewording activity. Experienced writers revise to find the form or shape of their argument and try to use structural expressions to find framework for their argument. For experienced writers, revising is a way to fix or rewrite their essay to have a strong argument and enough details to support it. Revision strategies are important because it’s part of the process of discovering meaning altogether. Also it is important to use because when you write you are writing for a reader, so experienced writer revise because they need to consider creating an essay that is going to catch the reader attention and be able to understand it. The experienced writers see their revision process as a recursive process, a process with significant recurring activities with different levels of attention. Since students revise differently, they are not really helping themselves or anyone, because they just believe in trying to make the essay state the point of the topic, but there are a lot of things that need to be pointed out in an essay for a reader to be interested in. Revision strategies is basically to perfect your writing, to become a great writer, and make it an interesting essay for the reader to enjoy.