- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Identity, Rhetoric & Propaganda in the "Fake News" Era
ENG 2100: JMWA f18 Baruch College
