Revision

I really liked the piece by Nancy Sommers because it relates so much to what we have been doing in our own class, especially recently. Throughout this semester we have been writing papers and creating our own works that will be shown in a portfolio due the beginning of December. After writing these papers we have conferences and are told to start the revision process, but I don’t think many of us knew the correct way to start or even where to begin and Sommers states this in her article. Many students don’t know what to do and aren’t really taught it in class.
In high school I was always told to correct grammar and fix structure, but I feel like revision needs to be much more than that and it is. I was never told the right way to revise and I think many others are in the same boat. When I was told to fix a paper, I just did what I thought would help my paper. But after being in GWRTC and learning about revision and getting help in conferences, I realized that there is more to it then structure and little errors, it’s actually trying to figure out what can make your paper better and make more sense.
I have learned that sometimes you need to do a little more research or even reorganize certain ideas so they flow better. Maybe you may need to even rewrite different aspects or add another paragraph to get your point across better.
I think Sommers understood that students weren’t getting the whole point to the revision process and started wondering where revision really came from and what happens from paper to paper, draft to draft. Like she says, you can’t just change words around. It’s much bigger than that. You need to focus on what you can do to reach improvement and overall satisfaction.