SQR 3

Eloy Gonzalez
English 1320-1301
Instructor: Trang Phan
9/9/10

Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experiences Adult Writers
S: Many writers think of revision of a writing as just correcting a few words or just making some minor changes. A study has showed how the inexperienced writers think about revision and how experienced writers think about revision. Edward Corbett had a contemporary model which included five steps which were conception (invention), incubation (disposition), production (elocution), (memoria), and, (pronuntiatio). From these, James Britton took conception, incubation, and production and this was what was thought to us since it was a lot easier linear process. Making minor changes or changing a word for another was the way many of us were thought as we got through grade school. Most inexperienced writers look at revising as just changing words around or looking for other by looking in the dictionary for better words to replace. Experience writers think of revision as changing a whole idea and checking to make sense. Experience writers make their point across without thinking how many drafts it takes until they are satisfied with what they wrote. What is important is to have a sense of discovery that both experienced and inexperienced fail to have.


Nancy Sommers. “College Composition and Communication”, Vol. 31, No.4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 378-388


Q: What are the revision strategies of experienced writers found in Sommer’s studies?

R: Experience writers think about rewriting a paper at least 4 times and revising it at least two times. The first rewrite is to just think about the content and respond to it and actually restructuring it. The second rewrite is trying to figure out that it doesn’t matter what you wrote on the first one some ideas might change. The third rewrite is finding an argument or maybe finding a certain idea that you might want to extend just a bit more and thinking that an idea maybe used later on. The fourth rewrite you resolve the argument and find better word choice and phrasing. The first revising is to make sure that the ideas you had previously are still what you want to include in the writing. The second revising though requires you to think what final ideas are going to make it into the writing. I found the way experience writers write efficient but I also find it too much time consuming. Many of us students don’t really take the time or are given the time by our professors to really think of an idea and work in it for period of time to actually take the time to write our ideas. We as students don’t have many days to actually make our writing more efficient. Experienced writers are right on their method but it is just a time consuming process.