Live Blog Notes 2/9/11

1. Live Blog Notes2/9/11 Nancy Sommers “Revisions strategies of a student writer and an experienced writer. “ Kristie Fleckenstein “Appetite for Coherence” Sullivan and Egglesten “Before you begin” and “Techniques and tools”

2. What we are taught as writers from the beginning! “When writing your essay, I encourage you to think for yourselves while you express what I’d most agree with.”

3. Nancy Sommers: “Revision strategies of a student writer and an experienced writer.” Gordon rohman James britton • Prewriting • Writing • Rewriting • Linear growth • Conception • Incubation • Production

4. Rhetoric and writing • Britton considers revision as something you approach after the first and second draft is written. • His point of view is rooted in classical rhetoric, writing would be used for orating and no other reason • Speech; not separating the writer from the speaker.

5. Barthe • “Speech is irreversible” • The only way you can retract a word is to annunciate those very instructions. • To an orator it is though to study revision is like re-studying writing, and nothing else. • What separates speech from text is revision alone.

6. Sommer’s Case study. Revision-a sequence of changes in a composition-changes which are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work.

7. Participants • Boston University Students • Oklahoma city Students • Boston University professionals • Oklahoma city professionals.

8. Case Study • Each were asked to write an essay, including writing a revision • After each individual was done they were then asked a series of questions. • The results turned out to be very clear cut, it was all in the definition of the word “revision”

9. Case Study Students Pro’s • Students did not use the actual word “revision” while talking about the exercise. • Students approach to revisions could be a coined concept such as “thesaurus philosophy of writing.” They are not looking at the document as a whole, but merely chopping it into pieces and trying to find a better piece of the puzzle, not a better puzzle. • Students lacked vision and tools on how to fix the “something larger” conflict that existed in the writing. • The most major concern was to rediscover the argument that they were writing about. • “Writing develops like a seed, not a line.” • Revisions were more about changing the way they address the reader, to get them to understand their point better. • For an experienced writer revision is where they get the heart of their writing. • They felt very passionately about the fact that in the revision is where there true writing came alive, it’s where all the layers would show and not just one.

10. Questions?

11. ?????? • 1. As a student and a writer which approach do you feel you take? Do you create during revisions? Or do you just re-arrange and re-word ideas you have already written down? • 2. After reading this do you feel like you will try and make revision a stronger role while writing any piece of literature? • 3. Do you feel like the education you have received in writing previous to college led you to a misunderstanding as to what revision really could provide of your work?

12. Kristie Fleckenstein: “Appetite for Coherence” • This article is addressing students and their ability or rather inability to put thoughts together coherently in writing. • Students expresses difficulty with coherence , for one to realize what they are writing is incoherent they must step out of the writing role and into the reader

13. Coherence

14. Suggested Exercise • First step is to take a sample of another’s student’s writing and have them read the paragraphs sentence by sentence. • Second step to the process is to ask the students to identify what the piece of writing is about, as a whole, not just that one sentence • When doing this it is revealed that a lot of times the sentences do not stand on their own as far as the term coherence is concerned.

15. Solutions!! To really make a student produce coherent writing you must make the student feel as though they have control of the information that they are trying to convey to you. You must do this by taking the focus off of your judgment and putting it into the student’s hands. They must trust themselves, the more they do so the more coherent the thought process will come through in their writing. To be good writers, one must be a good reader.

16. Questions?

17. ?????? • 1. Have you ever conducted a similar exercise on yourself as suggested in this reading, if not, what other methods do you use to ensure your message is getting across to the reader? • 2. Have you ever written a paper and felt like you did a really well getting your message across and then found out to the teachers eyes it seemed scattered? What kind of advice did they give you? What tactics did you employ on your next piece?

18. Sullivan and Eggleston “Before you Begin” and “Techniques and Tools” • “Before you Begin” • Standard proofreading-making sure the piece of writing is grammatically sound. • Editorial proofreading- making piece of writing is grammatically correct and choose best vocabulary as possible. • Copyediting- involves all the grammatical responsibility as previous two, but requires re-organizing and re-phrasing things to maximize coherence. • Substantive editing- all responsibilities as other editors, but has the freedom to suggest new ideas in writing.

19. Editing

20. Getting organized and staying realistic. • The level of editing depends on the resources available to you, the more you have, the further down the list you go. Substantive being ideal. • When starting to edit a piece of work, you will be told to what extent you will have to edit, if you are not you need to ask what’s expected. • Editing any piece requires knowledge of who the targeted audience is. • It is important to keep a realistic goal in mind when editing, if things become to much you need to work more, cut back amount of work, or try to push back due date. All three need to be discussed always.

21. Consistency • Find out if what your editing is going to be hard copy or electrical? It makes a difference in how you are going to edit the material. • It’s important to pick a reference while editing and sticking to that reference. Following one set of rules per piece is helpful for overall consistency in editing a piece. • Find out who will be answering any questions you have about the piece while you are working on it.

22. “Techniques and Tools”

23. The essentials • This article says there are two “musts” to get through editing anything. • 1. Webster dictionary • 2. Chicago Style Manual • Question: Can you think of any other tool you would choose as a must to take with you while on an editing journey?

24. A few more rules. • Even if you are being asked to use different resources its still crucial to have these so you aren’t violating any hard fast rules of English. • A style sheet is crucial because it will keep the language you choose to include in writing consistent • To make your editing universal to all readers, you must use standard marks. • In the editing world, questions about a piece of writing are called queries. • When asking questions about someone else’s work it is best to follow three rules; be concise, precise and polite. • Always make it a point to convey your message in the least amount of text as possible.

25. Questions?

26. ?????? • 1. After reading this article it is clear that being organized is very essential to being an editor. What are some strengths that you all think you carry that will help you in your professional editing career? What sort of editing would you favor because of those strengths? • 2. If you could apply editing to your dream job, what field would it be in? Just curious.