SQR3

Alva Nidia Huerta

ENG 1320/1301. 158

Trang Phan

09/10/2010

Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers

Summary:

This article written by Nancy Sommers has to do with student writers and experienced adult writers. Sommers conduct a research involving twenty freshman from Boston University and the University of Oklahoma and twenty experience adult writers from Boston and Oklahoma City.

In this case study Sommers had each writer write three essays, expressive, explanatory and persuasive, she had them rewrite each essay twice. Mostly all the students didn’t use the terms revision or rewriting in their vocabulary, revision was something they didn’t do and they left that part for the teachers. Their vocabulary is totally different and has other meanings. Students don’t willing full revise, it’s not that they are unwilling to revise but they have been taught to do in a consistently narrow and predictable way. Experience writers have a good understanding of their vocabulary and what revision is. Their primary objective when revising is finding a form of shape of what they are arguing. Experienced writers have objectives they follow while rewriting. They see the revision process as a process that has significantly recurring activities.

Student writers fail to have a sense of writing as discovery, meaning they don’t have ability to start all over again. They need to be able to rely on their senses and be able to see their writing. The difference between writing and speech is the same difference student writers have and experienced writers have, “the possibility of revision”.

Nancy Sommers. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”. College Composition and Communication. Vol. 3, No. 4(Dec., 1980), pp 378-388

Question:

What are the revision strategies of experienced writers found in Sommer’s studies? What can you learn from those strategies?

Summary:

Experienced writers have many objectives of revision strategies. The main objective when they are going over their writings is to find the form or shape of their argument. They see what is right and what is wrong with the topic, and they choose what to include or exclude. The second objective of the writer is the concern for their readers; they put themselves in the reader’s position. So they can be able to see another point of view of their writing. These strategies help the over all process of communication between the writer and his/her readers. From these strategies I can learn how to become a better writer, and how to properly revise my writings. I need to actually look into my writings and see what really needs to be in there and what doesn’t. I should also need to put myself in the reader’s position so I can be able to see how the readers see my writings and if they are able to understand it, and see the complex of my writing.