When first reading this piece, I tried to force myself to identify with the attitude presented in the very first paragraph. Brock Dethier tries to identify with what he seems to think is a majority of students when he says “You turn in first drafts as soon as you can bull- shit your way to the page minimum” or when he says “You view revision as a bad joke that English teachers dreamt up to prolong the torture of homework”. He seems to speak to the student body that doesn’t like revising, because they never really worked too hard on the first draft of the paper and therefor dread evening revising or rewriting a second draft. I didn’t particularly like that he thinks this is a generality. Some students actually try on their first drafts, putting in probably most of the effort and work into this draft then into, perhaps, the second draft. For me, I can agree that yes, I don’t always love the idea of revising, but not because I have a bad attitude towards revising. In fact, I welcome change and I welcome improving my own work. The only thing I could say that I may find a bit dreadful in the revising process is knowing that I didn’t deliver as well as I hoped to do so in my first draft. But that’s also expected; first drafts aren’t supposed to be final drafts, but I feel like putting most of the effort into this first draft, will only help make the revision process easier!

In the chapter “Revising Attitudes,” Brock Dethier attempts to explain how one’s attitude directly affects their ability to actually revise their work. Dethier believes that if one dives into editing his/her paper with a negative attitude, they just get as much out of it and will be basically wasting their time. He seems to have a very good point because this same basic principle would apply to doing anything in life. Having a good attitude motivates us to actually put in our full effort and accomplish the best we could. So It would only make sense that every time I jump into editing my final draft with my annoyed attitude I almost never get anything done. I can’t be to blame, because honestly revising papers has to be the most tedious and painstaking process in writing. I will certainly attempt to watch my attitude and self-motivation as the try to correct my major problems in the paper. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem because i actually enjoy the subject and am very determined to make sure my audience truly understands the points i’m trying to make because i feel as if i’m onto something big.

This piece pretty much summed up my whole experience with revision.  For the longest time, I really didn’t find revising useful.  One of the main reasons why is because I was always able to get away with writing I had done the night before.  I was able to get praise on that writing never received any level of revision.  Looking back at what I used to write and what I’ve been able put out recently,  there is no hiding the huge discrepancy in the levels of writing.  The one’s that underwent multiple stages of revision had elements in them that I never really thought I was capable of.  While revision may be time time consuming, understanding what you can get out of it is what makes it worth it.  It was the lack of said understanding that made my past experiences with revision so unproductive.  A lot of what Deither points touched on in the section about understanding are something I look to add to my own revision. Just as the piece said, “seeing is believing.”

“It’s all about your attitude.” I am sure someone famous said that once. Truly, though, a person’s attitude is key to success in all he wants t0 accomplish. If one wants to win a tennis match, he must be upbeat and tell himself he can do it. The same goes for one trying to lose some weight. Attitude is everything.

Brock Deither, in his chapter “Revising Attitudes,” suggests that we more than just change one’s attitude towards revising. Although time and again he stretches the importance of understanding how much attitude plays towards revision, Deither really emphasizes that it is not enough. That if we are to show the importance of revision, and change people’s perspective of revision and subsequently attitude, we have to enable their revision abilities. By teaching the “how to” as well, we can instill the significance of revision even deeper into the writer. This holds true because it is not enough to just recognize importance, but rather the writers have to experience the importance as well to feel revision’s effects for themselves. Therefore, this is why attitude is important, because without the right outlook on revision, without being able to recognize importance, writers will almost never be able to even begin to experiment with revision. Most novice writers have a book of excuses when it comes time to revise, and only when we can show understanding of how to revise, will we be able to win over the writer. However, it all begins with attitude.

As I was reading “Revising Attitudes” by Brock Deither I agreed with everything he was saying. I think the most important topic Deither wrote was, Resistance to Revision. I enjoyed the way he stated why some people resist to revise a piece of work and in a few sentences, he made a small argument to why it is important to revise. One phrase that I think was important was, “use what’s useful; disregard the rest.” The suggestions that the readers write on our paper are simple suggestions, like he said they’re “not orders.” Some of the suggestions that the readers give us sometimes won’t make it to the second draft.

I plan to take all suggestions into consideration for my second draft. I am a writer who likes to get all types of different critics. I am open to all suggestions to make my paper better and understandable. I plan to revise my work by first starting off with the comments the readers made to my paper. Then I’m going to focus on how to fix my spelling and grammar. This article did influence my way of thinking to revise my draft. I don’t have to take all the suggestions that are made in my paper; I can pick some that will strength my paper.

I think that the way schools generally teach writing encourages students to view writing as a linear exercise in which the goal is not good writing but completion of the paper.  The emphasis is less on the ambiguities of writing, the style and the art, and more on meeting deadlines and simply writing something.  As students mature as writers, however, it is important to begin to understand that writing is a multi-step process in which writing is revised multiple times and the final product consists layering multiple revisions on top of each other.

I’ll definitely try to take a more positive approach to revising as a I revise my paper.  I’ll try to make the best of it, and genuinely make it a positive and productive experience.  Revision certainly provides many opportunities to feel discouraged and overwhelmed but I will remember the stories of positive revision experiences included in this essay and will seek to make positive changes to my paper.

My takeaway was that revisions and writing is greatly affected by your mindset. We unconsciously revise our words before they are spoken, our text messages before they are sent. But it’s suddenly so difficult to apply it to academic texts. I can argue that writing is instead affected by your skills, or partly. It’s not easy to write demanding papers, but I do believe that it’s more about the writer’s mindset, something I did not realize until after reading this text. Deither greatly emphasizes on how your attitude towards revisions is crucial for editing.

Deither also provides various reasons of why revisions are helpful. His first reason was the most insightful. The writer should be writing for himself and to improve himself, not for others. Revisions allows you to revisit ideas you had previously entertained, Personally, to make my writing more enjoyable I picked a topic that resonated within me, which was a video game. If you enjoy a game, then you should enjoy writing about the game. Focusing on this positive feeling will make the writing appear less like a chore and more as an activity I would enjoy doing. I find it difficult to revise my own writing unless there is feedback from others. I would not say that it’s because I’m biased towards my own paper. But because I feel like I have expressed my ideas in a professional and formal manner, and these are not always the most effective methods of conveying ideas.

Before college, I have never realized the importance of revision. I was one of the people that tried to make their draft perfect so that I never have to look at it again. Over the last few months, however, with the amount of papers that I have had to write, I learned something that has completely changed my views on the writing process; writing a “perfect” paper on the first try is very close to being impossible. This kind of thinking not only prevents me from spilling my ideas straight onto the paper, but it prolongs my writing process by hours. If I try to write a paper with a different, less idealistic attitude, I’m able to convey my thoughts a lot more easily. With revision I’m able to express my thoughts and not feel pressured for it to sound perfect on the first try. “Revision offers writers many things beyond more praise or a better grade—a deeper, sharper understanding of the subject, a satisfying sense that the ideas come across in the best possible way, a chance to clarify and perhaps change your opinions.” As someone who has never looked at revision as a necessary part of writing, I was intrigued with what Brock Dethier had to say. He does consider revision just a process of fixing up your paper. I think that if more people viewed revision that way, they would understand the importance and opportunity that writing possesses.

Acts of revision was a bit of a lengthy read but not a second of it was a waste. it was so helpful, not only in tips and instructions but in attitudes and outlooks. It was filled with writer’s very real points of view. There are many of us who, no matter if we are simply students or published writers, will never take ourselves seriously; so hearing our same fears and thoughts come from the brains of some people who we actually might take seriously, it helps. We are all human yet it is so easy to forget. This piece starts off with some inspiring and relatable quotes from other author’s views on revision, and slowly eases you in to real life examples of people’s work. Seeing how a poem changed from many lines, to just three, to three different lines gave me a large sense of relief. I feel as though my draft is a huge piece of work that can be chopped down and almost completely transformed. I thought I had failed at a draft because others drafts seemed to be at the ‘proofreading’ stage while mine needed to go to the butcher. I see that this is okay now. There are many numbered steps towards the end of the piece that have made it very easy for me to follow. Instead of reading the entire piece and just taking the advice and condensing it (which I will also do) they have done the work for me and made it easy to follow. Specifically the appendix is particularly helpful and I will incorporate this and the worksheet that was printed out and given to us in class to revise my draft for Thursday. It is going to be more work for me than for many others but I accept the challenge and hope that this will take my paper to where I want it to be.

I am big into the idea of editing, but that hasn’t always been the case. For a while, I believed in some of the “resistances to revision” that Dethier pointed out. In high school I had the idea in my head that the first draft was basically the best and the most raw/original content I was to come up with, not understanding that yes, raw material is the basis of a paper but needs to be built upon to create a stronger structure. I also thought revisions were tedious. I hated taking the time to go back and reread my paper over and over again until I made myself sick. The thing was, I didn’t need to go that far into it. Like this piece shows, editing is supposed to enhance but not recreate something that’s already been created. I was the type of person who worked so hard and so carefully on their first draft, even, that little to no further editing was necessary. That was a lot of pressure, though, trying to write and gather all of my thoughts so beautifully in one shot. It would take me way too long to finish essays because of the fact that I thought it was my one and only chance to get it right. This mentality carried onto the beginning of my first semester at college. I struggled with writing with my own voice as I tried to fit it all in the first time around. But as time has carried on I’ve realized- and as thoughtfully as Dethier put it- just how valuable and important drafts really are. I can get all of my thoughts and ideas out of my head and onto paper without having to worry too much about it because I know I can and will go back to edit through later. A draft provides an easy entryway into writing. And, let me say, after the rhetorical analysis rough draft we just handed in I feel more confident about drafts than ever. I felt free writing what I had to say and every time I go back to take a look at what I’ve got down I know I have the opportunity to add to or take away from any part of it. I don’t need to change the whole piece, just parts of it. I am looking forward to fully editing my paper because I know it has great potential and I know how to work with it.
“If you trust in your ability to make it better later, you may be more willing to lower your standards on the first draft and accept that the draft will be (temporarily) awful. That willingness will keep you from getting hung up and blocked, as often happens to writers who feel that they must start with the perfect first paragraph. Think of how much time you could save, how much stress you could shed, if you could relax and spew forth a first draft, rather than agonize over every movement of the cursor.” This piece has made me better understand how to go about my revisions and I think it has great advice for those unsure about it.

Emily Weiss

03.15.2016

Deither make us think in a novel way. When I think of consumption, I think of food, but Deither says words, images, landscapes, memories, books, and hours are also meals. In writing, it is important to forgive yourself and move on, so you can improve and become the most demanding reader to yourself. One main point in revising is that, there does not need to be something wrong with your paper to revise it. It can be that you want to change the direction that you are going or you want to focus in something else so the paper can be better than you can ever imagine. This is what happened to my paper as well. I first started going to the direction that the show Shark Tank is an opportunity for young entrepreneurs to achieve the American Dream. Then I redefine my thesis statement and focus it on entertainment. I will focus more on metaphors and entertainment side. I will also make my transitioning from paragraphs to paragraphs better. The professor or classmates are only giving you suggestions, so you can use the one you think will help you, and throw the rest out the window. I like that the author gave the analogy that writing is like a song. A singer sang an amazing song. However, there is always room for improvement. A YouTuber can make a remix of it, and it becomes a great it. You should get over with the grade that you get and read the comments. I do not know if that day will come: “What makes me happy is rewriting.”

I found “Acts of Revision: A Guide For Writers” and more specifically the chapter that Brock Deither writes to be extremely helpful and insightful because it provides an excellent perspective on the importance of your own attitude towards writing. She starts off by saying “In writing and revision, attitude is everything.” I agree with this statement because often times I believe that if an individual wants to write about a certain topic they would do it with more passion since they have some type of personal connection towards the topic. For example, I loved to write my rhetorical analysis on the 1971 Coca Cola Commercial due to many reasons. (Spoiler Alert Mad Men) Initially, I found out about the commercial from the series finale of Mad Men and I thought it was an excellent end to one of the greatest shows ever created and I started to research on my own about the commercial and the historical significance. Thats when I began to analyze the commercial and when I had the opportunity to write about it, I was excited because now I had the opportunity to fully go into depth about how I viewed the commercial and this created a positive attitude towards me writing my paper. The author also makes great points on why writers wouldn’t like to revise their work and I agree with a lot time, and to be honest I hate revising my work but I do it anyways. Its a great opportunity for me to improve my skills as a writer because the other people in my group provided excellent feedback on my paper and I was able to improve my writing so it becomes stronger. I don’t believe that this piece will influence my final draft as much as I initially thought because the key point that was being made was that attitude is important, and I believe that I have excellent attitude towards my topic. 

Revising is every writer’s secondary job. The piece hits on the key points: the dreadful feeling of having to do revisions. Revisions is a tiresome process, a process that all writers have to go through again and again for a piece. However, the author of “Acts of Revision” suggest to end the endless cycle of revision before you, the writer, come to start hating your own piece.

I feel that at any time after the first draft, I slowly start to hate my writing. It’s hard to do revisions. It’s like deleting half the draft and starting over at the other half. However, after feedback from others (my peers and professor), there is a path to the revision. But it’s only the start. To get to the path to a final draft, a lot of revisions and more killing of brain cells would be required. “Acts of Revision” didn’t really change my mind about revision. It’s a necessary process, but also a process I dislike as it is for an essay.

Something I heavily resonated in this piece of writing were some aspects on the theme of acts of revision. Often times, I feel editors are a little bit too general in marking their comments and might simply write a one word comment, such as “Awk”, referring to an awkward phrase or something in that context. I think if an editor is so general in that sense and is there to help a writer work on corrections, they need to be more specific in their explanation. Marking a paragraph, or even a simple sentence as “Awk” does not allow me as a writer to make those corrections because I do not know how. What about my sentence do you not understand? Is it the wording or the overall message or content? I think an editor needs to be more clear and us as writers need to “ask the responder for further explanation” as the article briefly puts it. When the people in my writer’s group respond to my paper and have suggestions for me on what to edit, I intend to question them on exactly what they mean in terms of any correction they would like me to make that I am unclear of, otherwise there would be no point of making those suggestions in the first place.

Interesting work. Some good ideas. And a couple of authors names I heard in past. A lot of new technics pop up in this article. For myself I noticed famous and legendary name, and can’t disagree with the statement from Agatha Christie, who is expressing the problem more elegantly: “If you like to write for yourself only, that is a different matter—you can make it any length, and write it in any way you wish; but then you will probably have to be content with the pleasure alone of having written it.”

I want to point a thesis (maybe I can see it as a thesis) – “revise alone, revise with others.” It is so strong. I never thought how useful the opinion of other people is. Only when I got a comments from my writing group I was able to modify, change my RA project, I was able to see me weak point and where I need to pay more attention.

I don’t like to revise my paper. I agree that is very useful and it makes your paper better. I am positive about it. This pages gave me an understanding and knowledge of the idea that nobody likes to do it. It is just cruel to do it. It will be hard and difficult at the beginning, but over time you will fill much confident and experienced in it.

I want to finish my response with words from the book:” “Yes, this works. It’s worth it.”