Mike McGuire MV Community College COM 101 Look, and then look again A seminar on revision strategies (and fish)

What do you see? Tell the story behind the picture? FREEWRITE

What do you see?

Is the book facing away from you or towards you?

What do you see?

Write what you see…

When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair. – E. B. White

What is Revision?  Like writing, itself, revision is a process  Revision and reading go together  Revision is taking a step back from your writing and looking at it again with a fresh perspective  Once you do this, you can make appropriate changes to better meet the purpose of your message and better address your audience

Revision Is NOT Editing  Revision is about “higher-order concerns”  Clear communication of ideas  Organization of paper  Paragraph structure  Strong introduction and conclusion  Editing is about “later-order concerns”  Sentence mechanics  Punctuation  Spelling  Capitalization  Documentation Style

Revision is Necessary  Few writers can produce polished writing on the first pass  Revision ensures that you said exactly what you wanted to say in a manner most appropriate for your audience

Revision involves adding, cutting, moving material, and after that, editing and proofreading. – Handbook Lynn Troyka.

Risks of Not Revising  An ineffective message is a waste of everyone’s time  Your reader may misunderstand or be confused by what you have written  Your reader may form a low opinion of your abilities

Careless, hasty, unrevised writing is always apparent.

How Do I Revise?  Try the ECR method evaluate, change, reevaluate  Try ACRM method add, cut, replace, move  Wait  Be honest with yourself  Throw stuff away  Don’t edit  Look again

Take a Break from Writing  After your first draft, take a break and do something else  Return to it later with a fresh perspective  Switch your role from writer to reader Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least. – Horace

To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again and once more, and over and over. – John Hersey

Activities During Revision  Shift mentally from suspending judgment; read your draft critically to evaluate it.  Decide whether to write an entirely new draft or to revise what you have. Don’t be too critical. Most early drafts are sufficient to allow for revision.  Be systematic. Move from higher- to lower-level concerns. organization paragraphs sentences word choice

Revise on Two Levels…  Global Level whole essay and paragraphs  Local Level sentences and words Refer to the Part 1, Chapter 7 of your SF Writer

Do you have writer’s block?  Fear of writing  Mental paralysis  Frustration  Panic  Procrastination  Avoidance

Treating the Block  Stop hating the block—refocus your energy  Be comfortable with chaos  Do a good job at prewriting  Turn off the internal editor  Picture an image or scene that relates to your topic  Try writing your material as if your were someone else  Avoid staring at a blank page  Visualize yourself writing  Write about your topic to a friend  Start in the middle  Use focused freewriting  Change your method of writing

An ox at the roadside, when it is dying of hunger and thirst, does not lie down; it walks up and down—up and down, seeking it knows not what—but it does not lie down. – Oliver Schreiner, From Man to Man

Mike McGuire MV Community College COM 101 Proofreading/Editing Well, it’s certainly not revision, but it is necessary

Proofreading/Editing are for Later-order Concerns  Spelling  Punctuation  Sentence structure  Documentation style

Proofreading Strategies  Know the errors you typically make and look just for those  Slowly read your writing aloud  Read your paper backwards  Edit one line at a time  Put yourself in the place of your reader  Exchange papers with a friend

More Proofreading Strategies  Apply specific strategies to help with difficult areas  Have a peer edit your writing  Ask an instructor or mentor for their advice

Use Computerized Tools Carefully  Spell Check  When in doubt, use a dictionary  Never “Accept All”  Grammar Check  Be critical; you know more than your computer

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. — The Elements of Style William Strunk, Jr.

To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write. – Gertrude Stein

People want to know why I do this; why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy—and I keep it in a jar on my desk. – Stephen King, on himself

You must become an ignorant man again And see the sun again with an ignorant eye And see it clearly in the idea of it. – Wallace Stevens from “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”

Writing is revision…. There are no good writers; there are only good rewriters. – unknown