Q & R 4

Q & R 4: What happens when students do not see revision as an important process?

The process of revision, as Sommers suggested, “is a sequence of changes in a composition- changes which are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work” (380), but most people, especially students, do not see it that way or do not want to see it that way. What I mean by this is that most time people are used to do only the minimum others require from us and do not want to go beyond that. A good composition requires knowledge, time, a profound revision, and a lot of effort, and if it lacks these important requirements it will not be as good as the writer wants.
Students tend to think that when the teacher says that it is necessary to revise the paper before the final composition the only thing to do is to change some words, sentences, and grammar basically. That is a big misconception that many students, and even teachers, have. The revision is not taken seriously nor the writing.
When students do not see the revision process as it should, the real and specific problems that have to be addressed to generate a good composition cannot be identified. Students tend to forget that the main purpose of writing is to communicate ideas and thoughts to a reader, influence and appeal to the emotions. Students forget that we want to cause an effect on that person not merely give a paper full of extravagant words that the reader may not even know.
Sommers stated that if we follow the linear model instead of the revision process it is even harder to develop ideas and change the direction of them whenever it is necessary (383). I have been taught, and maybe the majority of students has, that in order to write a good essay it is necessary to start with a thesis statement or introduction that catches the attention of the audience followed by a body (a certain amount of paragraphs, depending on the length of the essay), and a good conclusion. I am not against this method, it think it is helpful in a certain way. The composition is well organized so that the reader finds it easy to read, but I did not like this method at all because once I had written the introduction I could not develop my ideas so well. I had the idea that once the introduction had been written (which I considered the most important) I had to stick to it and develop my ideas from there. If after writing for some time I changed my mind regarding to a single sentence or thought, I wanted to change everything I had written but I could not because the intro was already there and sometimes the lack of time did not allow me to do so. I could not go back and start all over again. It was so frustrating and sometimes it still is. My sense of writing as a discovery that Sommer describes as “a repeated process of beginning over again, starting out new” (387) was there but I was not willing to take it beyond.
Therefore, it is crucial for students and teachers to change the misconception about revising and start using the process of revision, not the one that has always been taught but the one proposed in the article. That way both teachers and students can see and comprehend what constitutes good writing.