Thursday, October 28, 2010

Self-Reflection on Revision Strategies and Evaluating a Website

Reflect separately on the exercises: Revision Strategies and Evaluating a Website.

Revision Strategies video.

Reflect on the revision process and video. What does it mean to revise? Where does revision fit into the overall writing process? What did Norm mean when he mentioned "skilled and unskilled writers"? What did Sandra Perl mean when she spoke about "editing prematurely"?

What assumptions did Dr. Flowers mention that writers have about "good writing"? What does planning have to do with any of this? What is "perfect draft syndrome"? How is revision a way to transform the writing? What is writer-based, reader-based writing?

What are the steps to revision? How are these steps confirmed by Diana Hacker in her various grammar style books in the section on revision? If you don't have Hacker, use the grammar style book you have to respond to the question.

How is keeping the reader in mind an important part of the writing process? What analogy does one of the character's use to describe the actual document?

Did you hear the questions used in the Initial Planning Sheet also used in the program?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mauricio Cavero Alprecht
English 1B
Professor Wanda Sabir
28 October 2010

To revise a paper is to go through the original draft and mold it so your point is embraced by your target audience. Norm talked about “skilled and unskilled writers” and what he meant by that is that it doesn’t matter how skilled or not you are, you will need to rewrite the paper in order to get your point accepted by your audience.

Sara Perl spoke about “editing prematurely,” and what she meant by that is that after the original writing we tend to cut or “slaughter” the paper and we usually are what she called “unskilled writers.” Editing is the process of tweaking and changes some words here and there in the paper but rewriting is the process of write again the idea focusing in the audience and you major points.

We, as writers, think that we are geniuses when it comes to writing and write the perfect sentences the first time. That is also known as the “perfect draft syndrome,” and we all suffer from it. The film tried us to be aware of that particular writing issue, so we get use to always revise the paper at least a couple of times.

The steps for a good revision are: 1) Think about your audience, 2) look at the overall objective, 3) what are your major points for the paper, and 4) focus your attention in the logic form of your sentences.

Keeping the readers in mind is an important part of the writing process because the readers are the audience that you are trying to convince them about the points that you are trying to make. The analogy that one of the characters made about the rewrite process is the ugly duckling one. She said that writing is like the ugly duckling if you go through the process of rewriting it will turn into a beautiful swan.

Anonymous said...

Bishowjit Sharma
English 1B
Professor Wanda Sabir
29 October 2010

Revise is a process of going through your essay and find out all kinds of mistakes in it. Sometimes we might not be able to write a perfect essay in first time. if we can't make our reader happy or make them understood what you really want to focus then we should revise our essay by changing some words, focusing on important points and making clear what our essay is really about. Norm talked about skilled and unskilled writers.
Sara Perl spoke about editing paper. it means changing words from essay and rearranging them. whereas rewriting essay is completely writing another essay. if an essay couldn't focus on what it want to tell the audience then it is better to rewrite an essay. while writing an essay we should always keep in mind our audience, objective and title.
we should always able to be convince the reader because they are our audience. we should convince them through our points. writing is a difficult process so, it needs lots of skill and practice. rewriting an essay doesn't mean that you are a bad writer, but it just makes you aware that you need some more practice and should focus on your objective.

Anonymous said...

Sha'Quea Pratt
Professor Sabir
English 1B
28 October 2010

In order to revise a paper you have to look over your first draft and point out your main points. With those main points, you need to find a way to make them as significant and to the point as possible.

Editing is not only correcting grammar and sentence structure. It is also about making sure all of your points are valid and connect. It is making sure your paper makes since and proves one main point. You must edit your paper at least 3 times. It helps to edit it once, leave it for one or two days and then come back to it to continue editing.

Even though I have already seen this video last year, it helps me because it reminds me that I need to make sure all of my points connect to each other and to revise at least 2 or 3 times.