Sommers

Sommers: On Revision

I hate revision. I absolutely hate revising my work and I always suggest my students to revise theirs. It's not because I think what I have written does not need revision -- obviously we can all benefit from it -- but for some reason, I just despise doing it and I was reading this article and just laughing at myself because I am like the students. I just change words up and reorganize some thoughts and call it a revised draft. A teacher once told me the ultimate form of revision is throwing your paper away. I cannot imagine writing an entire paper and tossing it out, because if I didn't feel as though what I was writing was exactly what I wanted to say, I don't think I would have written it. Arrogant.

The entire section on the bottom of page 381 discusses superfluity. I think this is the biggest issue for most students, including myself, because of page length requirements and paragraph number requirements. Sometimes I do not need 5-7 pages to make a point but forcing me to stretch it out to 7 pages can push some superfluous writing.

I am still laughing as I read this because it is me. I never feel the need to revise if I have already made my point. Even though I am aware that I can develop upon my ideas and make them greater or even have some kind of a revelation as I revise and find a new direction, I will only do it if the topic is of any interest to me. If I am writing for a class where the subject matter is not even remotely interesting, I know myself and I know that I will not revise -- if the class is something I am very curious about, I will definitely revise my work because I want to do better because I care.

One of the experienced writers says that they learned to never fall in love with what they write because they don't trust catchy phrases and that any kind of revision will be better with time passing first. Maybe I should try that.