1. “…For most of us revision is the only road to success.” Revision is an inevitable stepping stone in writing a good paper. Through the development of ideas, revision is a crucial step in every good writing. I’d like to think of this like finding a job, where your final complete paper is like your final secure job at the peak of your career, that you start at around age 40-50  and remain at until retirement. Meanwhile, all your previous jobs from when you graduated college to the final job are stepping stones like revision. At these stepping stones, your building work experience, insight, and reflection that will all lead to and benefit your final task, the job or your final paper.
2. A metaphor I use to think of revisions is creating a recipe. Creating a recipe is like writing a paper, making something out of nothing but concepts and elements to add. Because I am well versed in the baking aspect of the culinary world, I’m going to use a cake recipe as an example. Lets say that we’re creating a chocolate cake recipe as a metaphor of writing an essay. In efforts to create a good recipe compared to all the others out there, we must go through trial and error, adjusting ratios, and taste testing. Each time we bake a new batch its like another draft, and each taste test is like our peers reading over our writing. When we adjust the recipe, the amount of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, it’s our revision. Just like we adjust the ratio of the ingredients, we adjust the content of our paper, where things belong, where there’s too much of one idea, where there’s not enough and needs explanation. So just like we add or reduce the amounts of each ingredient in our cake recipe to make it delicious, we elaborate or omit ideas and bits of our writing in our paper in order to make it the best that it can be.
3. “A piece of writing is never finished.” Just like how we as humans are not perfect, our writing pieces are never finished. To say that it is finished at and given point is to say that it is the best that it can possibly be. But is it? Is the writing the best that it can ever be, or is it only the best that we could make it in the time (time-frame) that we have given ourselves to get it done. Similar to the popular saying, “You learn something new everyday,” we can always improve our paper just as we can always acquire more information, even when we think we’ve reached 100%. So long as we spend more time looking at it, whether with a cleared head or new set of eye, there are always changes to be made.

Revising Attitudes

When Brok Dethier writes, “…For most of us revision is the only road to success,” he is saying that we must go back and change parts of our work to make it better. This is true in many cases because our first draft is usually our worst, so we must write multiple drafts to get to our best work. While most of us think that the revision process is just for writing, we should be aware that we also go through the revision process in other aspects of our daily lives. By going through multiple revisions, we become better as writers and as people.

While Dethier compares the revision process to working on a car, I like to compare it to creating a piece of artwork. The first sketch is always messy and horrible, so most artists are always taking their time to revise it to make it more presentable. Sometimes, they have to erase and redraw a figure’s hand. Other times, they realize that using cool colors is better than warm colors for that particular piece of work. In the end, they create a beautiful piece of work after having it go through multiple changes. Similar to doing revisions in writing, creating artwork is a long process that results in something that was better than the initial product.

Revising Your Own Manuscripts

In “Revising Your Own Manuscripts,” David Murray writes, “A piece of writing is never finished.” Oftentimes, this is true because one can do a numerous amount of drafts and change a million different things, but it will still never seem to be fully complete. There are always little parts of it that can be changed to make it a bit better. The revision process can go on and on, but there has to be a certain point where one has to stop and call his or her work “finished.”

 

1.  When Brock Dethier writes “… For most of us, revision is the only road to success,” he’s saying that revision is a key part in the writing process for just about everyone. While we tend to be resistant to revision, seeing it as a sign of failure or something that makes our pieces worse, revising our original, rough thoughts is the only way to end up with a polished paper. I agree with his statement. Without revision, my papers would just be a jumble of thoughts with very little polish or cohesion.
2.  Dethier uses the metaphor of working on a car to think about revision, comparing the job of fixing up a car to the myriad of steps involved in revising a piece. When thinking of the steps of revision, creating art is the first thing that comes to mind. You often start out with a sketch, equivalent to the rough draft of a paper, to get your ideas on paper. You add details to that sketch, erasing anything you see as irrelevant to the final piece, and then get ready to create a colored, finalized, piece.
3.  Donald Murray writes that “A piece of writing is never finished.” Even if a text wasn’t written to a deadline, it would still remain infinitely unfinished. When we write, every sentence, or word even, brings up potential new meanings or ideas. We always feel as though there is more to add or change regardless of how many edits we’ve already made.

1. When Dethier writes, “… For most of us revision is the only road to success,” I think hes saying that no ones first draft is ever perfect. Everyone has to revise their writings or the text wouldnt be good. There are very few people who can write one draft and have it be perfect, and I believe this is what Dethier is trying to say. I find this to be very true. I know from my own experiences that my first drafts are usually terrible. I usually end up scratching the whole text and rewriting it entirely. To have a successful piece, there must be a revision process.
2. I can compare revision to practicing for a sport. For example, once you learn a new play in football you have to practice it over and over to make it the best it can be. Players dont run through a play once and say, “alright, thats good, see you guys at the game,” they  have to rehearse it over and over until there are no mistakes, making sure everyone takes the best routes possible. This is similar to revising. You need to look over your work again and again to make sure everything is written to the best of your abilities.
3. Donald Murray writes, “Good writing is essentially rewriting.” I think what he means by this is that a piece is truly never done, you can always go back and edit it more to make it better. To have a successful piece you must revise and rewrite many times. This relates to what Dethier says, “revision is the only road to success”. No ones first draft is ever perfect, you must look back and take apart the text to find stronger words to use and to throw away anything that isnt needed.

1. In this excerpt, Brock Dethier is referring to this misconception that revision itself is a sign of failure. “For most of us revision is the only road to success” is catering to those who get discouraged by this idea. Dethier asserts revision as a means to success, just like constructive-criticism/practice are means to improve. In my own writing, I see revision as a funnel where things are removed strategically and purposely.
2. Revision is to me like the practice of something, for example a sport. The whole “Practice leads to perfection” is similar to Dethier’s concept of revision leading to success.
3. Donald Murray’s assertion that “A piece of writing is never finished” relates to my experience with writing incredibly. The final piece that I produce is not my best version, it is only the version that my deadline allowed for. I also think of all the outside factors that contribute to it. A piece that I wrote last year and strongly believed in, upon a recent revision, could be completely different because of a change in thinking, new perception, etc.

1. I believe that “…For most of us, revision is the only road to success” is Brock Dethier’s way of saying that, for almost everyone, revising is the only way to make a writing better and that, as writers, in order for our drafts to become better (a success) we must revise. I agree with Dethier on this. I think revision is truly the only way to improve our writing and can help in any situation.
2. Revision is like the manure on a farm. It’s dirty and stinky but if you work with it and use it properly it can help your crops grow. The “farm” and “crops” represent the writing.
3. I don’t agree with “Good writing is essentially rewriting” (pg.101). I believe that anyone can have a well-written paper from the start without having rewrite it. Instead, I think “rewriting done right is essentially better writing” is a more accurate truth.

In the reading, “Revising Attitudes”, Brock Dethier writes, “For most of us revision is the only road to success.” When he says this, I believe he meant that we as a people need to keep improvising to be successful. Like writing that is due, if we do not make any revisions, we essentially leave out any room for improvement and risks our success. I agree with Dethier’s words because if we only do what we are comfortable with, we can never be better at what we do. We would still be limited to using methods or strategies that we know, but there could be better ways to do something that we just can’t find out unless we focus on revision.

Dethier connects revision to repairing a car in his reading. Another metaphor that I have for revision is building a PC. This is because when we are building a PC, we need all the parts, carefully place them in the correct place, and to make sure it works entirely. If something doesn’t work, the PC won’t run and is entirely a failure until it starts to boot up. With careful lookout on the requirements on the PC, we can figure that we may have plugged a cord into the wrong place, or we may be missing a crucial component for a computer to run. Once we can confirm that the PC can run, we can also do wire management and organize the wires so that they are neatly placed, and doesn’t interfere with the performance of the PC. Just like building a PC, revising use similar steps.

Donald Murray writes, “Good writing is essentially rewriting”. I agree with what Murray says because when I finish a piece of writing, I have a voice in my head that keeps telling me, “You can do better than this”, but I would be mentally fatigued from working on the paper. When I turned in my paper and received a B on a paper, I wouldn’t question why I didn’t get an A because I knew if I had the time to rewrite my paper, I could’ve covered the points of the writing with more precision. I believe that there is never enough revisions on a paper, but it is mental fatigue that keeps us from doing that.

3) b. “A piece of writing is never finished.” (pg. 103)
Any piece of writing, whether it be a novel, short story, scholarly article, or poem, can always be re-read and edited. No matter how many times a piece of work is edited, it can always receive newer feedback and suggestions from different people/perspectives. There will always be areas that can be improved, re-worded differently, or phrased better. Therefore, in a sense, Donald Murray’s phrase of “a piece of writing is never finished” in Revising Your Manuscripts is technically true considering all these different factors. What some may call a “final piece” may only be considered a “first draft” to others. Also, since there exists so many different lenses and perspectives that one can look through while writing/editing, there remains an infinite amount of areas to look over and rewrite.

1. You can never write the “perfect” first draft. No matter how long you spend on the first draft it will and can not be perfect. The only way to get close to perfection is to revise. To rewrite what you have written. Even though I rarely revise, I agree with this statement. Most students are obsessed with  their paper being “good enough” and not obsessed with their paper being “perfect.” We definitely understand that revision is important but it’s not something we would be willing to do if the paper we have written so far meets the guidelines. There is something about more work that turns us off.
2. I would say revision is like buying an old house, knocking it down, and rebuilding it.
3. “Good writing is essentially rewriting.” (pg 101) Like I mentioned before you can never write the perfect paper in one sitting. You should never be satisfied with your first draft. You should never be satisfied with something that is “good enough.” It is important to reread and rewrite your paper. It is important to have others look at your paper. There is always something you can reword, something you can add. My creative writing teacher at high school said “during revision you should always read your paper or your peer’s paper as a writer and not as a reader.”