“Revising Attitudes”

When I think of revising my work, honestly its either completely changing the whole paper, or barely changing anything. I sometimes am a “single drafter” where I feel that the first draft is composed and with few edits and proof reading can be the final draft. Then as I thought about my writing more I realized that those first drafts are a bunch of mini revisions in one step, like I didn’t even create a first draft, as I was revising it as I was writing the draft itself. Well the most recent example was with the first draft of the Mumia case, I got mostly positive feedback, telling me to edit and proof read. However while I was writing the paper, I was changing the order of paragraphs, writing chunks of text and fitting them into sequence as the first draft was coming together. So I feel that I revise while writing, and want to look into revising after the first draft also.  Just reflecting on that experience gave me a lot of insight.  If we are talking about “layering “writing the first initial thoughts are he foundations, while the revisions are the next immediate step, where you change major ideas and structure. Editing is more for changing specific sentences, and minor changes in syntax. Lastly, proofreading is running spell check one last time, and making sure you use proper  grammar and punctuation.  In terms of responding to the piece, I am surprised to see that I fit into the “single drafters” and that her work is based off intensive thought on this topic. It does give clear and concise reasons on why revision is necessary.  The second resistant ( revision is unnecessary if the first draft is good)  she talks about specifically stood out to me as often many friends and I myself have shared this opinion.  However now I have realized that revision is so important that I have been doing it all l\along.  The third one also resonated with me, as I feel that I dint want to ruin a good thing by changing it. However I have realized that revision just for the sake of changing something, but true revision can only enhance a piece.