SQR3

Guillermo Cabrera
ENG 1320/1301.161
Trang Phan
9/4/10
Summary 3
Citation: Author(s): Nancy Sommers “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 378-388
In this article Nancy Sommers is trying to explain how students and experienced adult writers have different ways to revise their essays. Two representative models are Gordon Rohman’s suggestion that the composing process moves from prewriting to writing to rewriting while James Britton’s model of the writing process as a series of stages described in metaphors of linear growth, conception, incubation, and production. Also while you can revise and essay you cannot revise a speech like the example Barthes gives, revision in speech is an afterthought. One of the things that got my attention was that the students she picked didn’t use revision on their essays they use other methods for example scratch out and do over again, reviewing, redoing, marking out, and slashing and throwing out. While experienced adult writers do revise their essays by using this kinds of methods which are rewriting and revising. I like revising my essays when I am done writing and at the end I like to go over my paper and use some of the methods that the students used for example one of the methods I use is slashing and throwing it out. At the end revising helps you improve your essay.
Guillermo Cabrera
ENG 1320/1301.161
Trang Phan
9/10/10
Question: Sommers (380) re-defines revision as “a sequence of changes in a composition changes which are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work”. How does this new definition of revision contradict to the traditional ones?
Respond: This definition contradicts the traditional one because the traditional one you go back after a few phrases and change or add more while Sommers definition you revise while a few words and throughout the writing of the work. Sommers definition is probably used by experienced writers, because some of the writers like to go back and revise after a few phrases and see if they made any mistakes or if they could add some more to their phrases. While the traditional definition you go back and change or add more. For example I would use the traditional definition because I like going back to my papers and see if I had to add more or if I have any misspelling that I would need to change. But in the long-run I should use Sommers definition because I should revise my paper after a few sentences.