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On Revision


adapted from an article by David Bartholomae

 

There are significant differences between writing and revising, which is more than a difference of time or place. The work is different. In the first case you're working on a subject-finding something to say and getting words down on paper (often finding something to say by getting words down on paper). In the second you're working on a text, on something that has been written on the subject as it is represented by the words and ideas on the page the first time through.

Revision allows you the opportunity to work more deliberately than you possibly can when you're struggling to get ideas together and words on the page the first time through. It gives you the time and occasion to reflect, question, and reconsider what you have written. The time to do this is not always available when you're caught up in the confusing rush of collecting your thoughts and composing in an initial draft. In fact, it is not always appropriate to challenge or question what you write while you are writing, since this can block thoughts that are eager for expression, divert attention from the task of getting words on the page and, in extreme cases, paralyze a writer completely.

A major job for the writer in revising a paper, then, is to imagine how the text and the ideas represented in it might be altered, presumably, for the better. This is seldom a simple, routine or mechanical process. You are not just copying-over more-neatly.

What, for example, does it mean for a text to be "better"? Is the better paper simpler, clearer, easier to read? Is it more complex, dense or difficult? Is the better paper more assertive or more suggestive? More elaborate or more straightforward? Revision allows the writer to imagine the problems the draft might pose for a reader: Can s/he follow? Will s/he be convinced? Will s/he understand? Do connections need to be more explicit? It allows the writer to consider, for his own purposes, what s/he has said: What am I doing? What points am I trying to make? Who notices such things? Who has such ideas? What are the counter-examples? The counter arguments? The second thoughts?

Let's pose the following as some "modes" of revision:

 

bulletGeneral revision-This involves the major re-working of a paper, where sections are rearranged, where sections are added, where sections receive elaboration or qualification or where sections are cut and scrapped altogether. Rearranging, adding, elaborating, subtracting-of all of these it is perhaps hardest for a writer to throw a passage away, even though he knows it doesn't fit or sounds dumb or is poorly written. One sign of a skilled writer, however, is the willingness to cut. Even the best writers write things that are better off in the wastebasket. No writer is so skillful or fluent that everything he writes deserves to be read.
bulletConceptual revision-This is a kind of revision for which actual papers do not get reworked, but ideas and positions get rethought, revised. This kind of work is very similar to general revision, except that you are not responding to the same assignment in the second paper as you did in the first. You are working with a new assignment that allows you to extend what you began in previous papers or journal entries.
bulletLocal revision-This is usually a matter of tinkering around with words or sentences, in order to make them more precise, expressive or elegant. Revision is the time when it is appropriate to stop and search for the right word. It is the appropriate time to stop and focus on the connections between sentences or paragraphs. Reading back over what you have written, reading carefully and slowly, allows you the opportunity to concentrate on such local matters as word choice, sentence structure and connectives.
bulletEditing-This is the work of correcting mistakes, usually mistakes in spelling, punctuation or grammar. It is the last thing you do after you've rewritten the paper and are ready to hand in the final draft. In the past, English teachers may have made the corrections for you. We will not. Instead, we will put checks in the margins of your papers to identify an error in the marked line. It is your responsibility to identify that error and correct it.

The hard work is locating the errors, not correcting them. Editing requires a slowed-down form of reading, were you pay attention to the marks on the page rather than to the sound of a voice or to the train of ideas, and this form of reading is strange and unnatural. It must be practiced, and for this reason the job of correcting mistakes is yours. You cannot pass this course unless you demonstrate that you can hand in consistently correct papers. Notice, however, that we make correctness the last concern in the writing of a paper. Even highly skilled writers make mistakes while writing. Their minds are on other matters. A paper is made correct when the formal draft is finished, not while it is being written.