Daisy Arebella Only!

Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers
Author(s):

Nancy Sommers

Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 378-388
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/356588
Accessed: 08-02-2018 07:18 UTC

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Revision Strategies of Student Writers

and Experienced Adult Writers

Nancy Sommers

Although various aspects of the writing process have been studied exten-
sively of late, research on revision has been notably absent. The reason for
this, I suspect, is that current models of the writing process have directed
attention away from revision. With few exceptions, these models are linear;
they separate the writing process into discrete stages. Two representative
models are Gordon Rohman’s suggestion that the composing process moves
from prewriting to writing to rewriting and James Britton’s model of the
writing process as a series of stages described in metaphors of linear growth,
conception-incubation-production.1 What is striking about these theories
of writing is that they model themselves on speech: Rohman defines the
writer in a way that cannot distinguish him from a speaker (“A writer is a man
who … puts [his] experience into words in his own mind”-p. 15); and
Britton bases his theory of writing on what he calls (following Jakobson) the
“expressiveness” of speech.2 Moreover, Britton’s study itself follows the
“linear model” of the relation of thought and language in speech proposed by
Vygotsky, a relationship embodied in the linear movement “from the motive
which engenders a thought to the shaping of the thought, first in inner
speech, then in meanings of words, and finally in words” (quoted in Britton,
p. 40). What this movement fails to take into account in its linear structure-
“first … then . . . finally”-is the recursive shaping of thought by language;
what it fails to take into account is revision. In these linear conceptions of the
writing process revision is understood as a separate stage at the end of the
process-a stage that comes after the completion of a first or second draft
and one that is temporally distinct from the prewriting and writing stages of
the process.3

The linear model bases itself on speech in two specific ways. First of all, it
is based on traditional rhetorical models, models that were created to serve
the spoken art of oratory. In whatever ways the parts of classical rhetoric are

Nancy Sommers, formerly Director of Composition at the University of Oklahoma, is now
Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University. She has taught writing at Boston Univer-
sity, the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and the Polaroid Corporation.
An NCTE Promising Researcher for her studies of the processes of revising, she is writing a
research monograph on revision.

Revision Strategies of Student Writers
and Experienced Adult Writers
Nancy Sommers
Although various aspects of the writing process have been studied exten-
sively of late, research on revision has been notably absent. The reason for
this, I suspect, is that current models of the writing process have directed
attention away from revision. With few exceptions, these models are linear;
they separate the writing process into discrete stages. Two representative
models are Gordon Rohman’s suggestion that the composing process moves
from prewriting to writing to rewriting and James Britton’s model of the
writing process as a series of stages described in metaphors of linear growth,
conception-incubation-production.1 What is striking about these theories
of writing is that they model themselves on speech: Rohman defines the
writer in a way that cannot distinguish him from a speaker (“A writer is a man
who … puts [his] experience into words in his own mind”-p. 15); and
Britton bases his theory of writing on what he calls (following Jakobson) the
“expressiveness” of speech.2 Moreover, Britton’s study itself follows the
“linear model” of the relation of thought and language in speech proposed by
Vygotsky, a relationship embodied in the linear movement “from the motive
which engenders a thought to the shaping of the thought, first in inner
speech, then in meanings of words, and finally in words” (quoted in Britton,
p. 40). What this movement fails to take into account in its linear structure-
“first … then . . . finally”-is the recursive shaping of thought by language;
what it fails to take into account is revision. In these linear conceptions of the
writing process revision is understood as a separate stage at the end of the
process-a stage that comes after the completion of a first or second draft
and one that is temporally distinct from the prewriting and writing stages of
the process.3
The linear model bases itself on speech in two specific ways. First of all, it
is based on traditional rhetorical models, models that were created to serve
the spoken art of oratory. In whatever ways the parts of classical rhetoric are
Nancy Sommers, formerly Director of Composition at the University of Oklahoma, is now
Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University. She has taught writing at Boston Univer-
sity, the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and the Polaroid Corporation.
An NCTE Promising Researcher for her studies of the processes of revising, she is writing a
research monograph on revision.
Revision Strategies of Student Writers
and Experienced Adult Writers
Nancy Sommers
Although various aspects of the writing process have been studied exten-
sively of late, research on revision has been notably absent. The reason for
this, I suspect, is that current models of the writing process have directed
attention away from revision. With few exceptions, these models are linear;
they separate the writing process into discrete stages. Two representative
models are Gordon Rohman’s suggestion that the composing process moves
from prewriting to writing to rewriting and James Britton’s model of the
writing process as a series of stages described in metaphors of linear growth,
conception-incubation-production.1 What is striking about these theories
of writing is that they model themselves on speech: Rohman defines the
writer in a way that cannot distinguish him from a speaker (“A writer is a man
who … puts [his] experience into words in his own mind”-p. 15); and
Britton bases his theory of writing on what he calls (following Jakobson) the
“expressiveness” of speech.2 Moreover, Britton’s study itself follows the
“linear model” of the relation of thought and language in speech proposed by
Vygotsky, a relationship embodied in the linear movement “from the motive
which engenders a thought to the shaping of the thought, first in inner
speech, then in meanings of words, and finally in words” (quoted in Britton,
p. 40). What this movement fails to take into account in its linear structure-
“first … then . . . finally”-is the recursive shaping of thought by language;
what it fails to take into account is revision. In these linear conceptions of the
writing process revision is understood as a separate stage at the end of the
process-a stage that comes after the completion of a first or second draft
and one that is temporally distinct from the prewriting and writing stages of
the process.3
The linear model bases itself on speech in two specific ways. First of all, it
is based on traditional rhetorical models, models that were created to serve
the spoken art of oratory. In whatever ways the parts of classical rhetoric are
Nancy Sommers, formerly Director of Composition at the University of Oklahoma, is now
Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University. She has taught writing at Boston Univer-
sity, the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and the Polaroid Corporation.
An NCTE Promising Researcher for her studies of the processes of revising, she is writing a
research monograph on revision.

378 378 378

This content downloaded from 130.86.12.250 on Thu, 08 Feb 2018 07:18:17 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

described, they offer “stages” of composition that are repeated in contem-
porary models of the writing process. Edward Corbett, for instance, describes
the “five parts of a discourse”-inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria,
pronuntiatio-and, disregarding the last two parts since “after rhetoric came
to be concerned mainly with written discourse, there was no further need to
deal with them,”4 he produces a model very close to Britton’s conception
[inventio], incubation [dispositio], production [elocutio]. Other rhetorics also
follow this procedure, and they do so not simply because of historical acci-
dent. Rather, the process represented in the linear model is based on the
irreversibility of speech. Speech, Roland Barthes says, “is irreversible”:

“A word cannot be retracted, except precisely by saying that one retracts
it. To cross out here is to add: if I want to erase what I have just said, I
cannot do it without showing the eraser itself (I must say: ‘or rather ..’ ‘I
expressed myself badly .. .’); paradoxically, it is ephemeral speech which is
indelible, not monumental writing. All that one can do in the case of a
spoken utterance is to tack on another utterance.”5

What is impossible in speech is revision: like the example Barthes gives, revi-
sion in speech is an afterthought. In the same way, each stage of the linear
model must be exclusive (distinct from the other stages) or else it becomes
trivial and counterproductive to refer to these junctures as “stages.”

By staging revision after enunciation, the linear models reduce revision in
writing, as in speech, to no more than an afterthought. In this way such
models make the study of revision impossible. Revision, in Rohman’s model,
is simply the repetition of writing; or to pursue Britton’s organic metaphor,
revision is simply the further growth of what is already there, the “pre-
conceived” product. The absence of research on revision, then, is a function
of a theory of writing which makes revision both superfluous and redundant,
a theory which does not distinguish between writing and speech.

What the linear models do produce is a parody of writing. Isolating revi-
sion and then disregarding it plays havoc with the experiences composition
teachers have of the actual writing and rewriting of experienced writers. Why
should the linear model be preferred? Why should revision be forgotten,
superfluous? Why do teachers offer the linear model and students accept it?
One reason, Barthes suggests, is that “there is a fundamental tie between
teaching and speech,” while “writing begins at the point where speech be-
comes impossible.”6 The spoken word cannot be revised. The possibility of
revision distinguishes the written text from speech. In fact, according to
Barthes, this is the essential difference between writing and speaking. When
we must revise, when the very idea is subject to recursive shaping by lan-
guage, then speech becomes inadequate. This is a matter to which I will
return, but first we should examine, theoretically, a detailed exploration of
what student writers as distinguished from experienced adult writers do when
they write and rewrite their work. Dissatisfied with both the linear model of
writing and the lack of attention to the process of revision, I conducted a

described, they offer “stages” of composition that are repeated in contem-
porary models of the writing process. Edward Corbett, for instance, describes
the “five parts of a discourse”-inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria,
pronuntiatio-and, disregarding the last two parts since “after rhetoric came
to be concerned mainly with written discourse, there was no further need to
deal with them,”4 he produces a model very close to Britton’s conception
[inventio], incubation [dispositio], production [elocutio]. Other rhetorics also
follow this procedure, and they do so not simply because of historical acci-
dent. Rather, the process represented in the linear model is based on the
irreversibility of speech. Speech, Roland Barthes says, “is irreversible”:
“A word cannot be retracted, except precisely by saying that one retracts
it. To cross out here is to add: if I want to erase what I have just said, I
cannot do it without showing the eraser itself (I must say: ‘or rather ..’ ‘I
expressed myself badly .. .’); paradoxically, it is ephemeral speech which is
indelible, not monumental writing. All that one can do in the case of a
spoken utterance is to tack on another utterance.”5
What is impossible in speech is revision: like the example Barthes gives, revi-
sion in speech is an afterthought. In the same way, each stage of the linear
model must be exclusive (distinct from the other stages) or else it becomes
trivial and counterproductive to refer to these junctures as “stages.”
By staging revision after enunciation, the linear models reduce revision in
writing, as in speech, to no more than an afterthought. In this way such
models make the study of revision impossible. Revision, in Rohman’s model,
is simply the repetition of writing; or to pursue Britton’s organic metaphor,
revision is simply the further growth of what is already there, the “pre-
conceived” product. The absence of research on revision, then, is a function
of a theory of writing which makes revision both superfluous and redundant,
a theory which does not distinguish between writing and speech.
What the linear models do produce is a parody of writing. Isolating revi-
sion and then disregarding it plays havoc with the experiences composition
teachers have of the actual writing and rewriting of experienced writers. Why
should the linear model be preferred? Why should revision be forgotten,
superfluous? Why do teachers offer the linear model and students accept it?
One reason, Barthes suggests, is that “there is a fundamental tie between
teaching and speech,” while “writing begins at the point where speech be-
comes impossible.”6 The spoken word cannot be revised. The possibility of
revision distinguishes the written text from speech. In fact, according to
Barthes, this is the essential difference between writing and speaking. When
we must revise, when the very idea is subject to recursive shaping by lan-
guage, then speech becomes inadequate. This is a matter to which I will
return, but first we should examine, theoretically, a detailed exploration of
what student writers as distinguished from experienced adult writers do when
they write and rewrite their work. Dissatisfied with both the linear model of
writing and the lack of attention to the process of revision, I conducted a
described, they offer “stages” of composition that are repeated in contem-
porary models of the writing process. Edward Corbett, for instance, describes
the “five parts of a discourse”-inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria,
pronuntiatio-and, disregarding the last two parts since “after rhetoric came
to be concerned mainly with written discourse, there was no further need to
deal with them,”4 he produces a model very close to Britton’s conception
[inventio], incubation [dispositio], production [elocutio]. Other rhetorics also
follow this procedure, and they do so not simply because of historical acci-
dent. Rather, the process represented in the linear model is based on the
irreversibility of speech. Speech, Roland Barthes says, “is irreversible”:
“A word cannot be retracted, except precisely by saying that one retracts
it. To cross out here is to add: if I want to erase what I have just said, I
cannot do it without showing the eraser itself (I must say: ‘or rather ..’ ‘I
expressed myself badly .. .’); paradoxically, it is ephemeral speech which is
indelible, not monumental writing. All that one can do in the case of a
spoken utterance is to tack on another utterance.”5
What is impossible in speech is revision: like the example Barthes gives, revi-
sion in speech is an afterthought. In the same way, each stage of the linear
model must be exclusive (distinct from the other stages) or else it becomes
trivial and counterproductive to refer to these junctures as “stages.”
By staging revision after enunciation, the linear models reduce revision in
writing, as in speech, to no more than an afterthought. In this way such
models make the study of revision impossible. Revision, in Rohman’s model,
is simply the repetition of writing; or to pursue Britton’s organic metaphor,
revision is simply the further growth of what is already there, the “pre-
conceived” product. The absence of research on revision, then, is a function
of a theory of writing which makes revision both superfluous and redundant,
a theory which does not distinguish between writing and speech.
What the linear models do produce is a parody of writing. Isolating revi-
sion and then disregarding it plays havoc with the experiences composition
teachers have of the actual writing and rewriting of experienced writers. Why
should the linear model be preferred? Why should revision be forgotten,
superfluous? Why do teachers offer the linear model and students accept it?
One reason, Barthes suggests, is that “there is a fundamental tie between
teaching and speech,” while “writing begins at the point where speech be-
comes impossible.”6 The spoken word cannot be revised. The possibility of
revision distinguishes the written text from speech. In fact, according to
Barthes, this is the essential difference between writing and speaking. When
we must revise, when the very idea is subject to recursive shaping by lan-
guage, then speech becomes inadequate. This is a matter to which I will
return, but first we should examine, theoretically, a detailed exploration of
what student writers as distinguished from experienced adult writers do when
they write and rewrite their work. Dissatisfied with both the linear model of
writing and the lack of attention to the process of revision, I conducted a

Revision Strategies Revision Strategies Revision Strategies 379 379 379

This content downloaded from 130.86.12.250 on Thu, 08 Feb 2018 07:18:17 UTC
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College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication

series of studies over the past three years which examined the revision pro-
cesses of student writers and experienced writers to see what role revision
played in their writing processes. In the course of my work the revision
process was redefined as a sequence of changes in a composition-changes which
are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work.

Methodology

I used a case study approach. The student writers were twenty freshmen at
Boston University and the University of Oklahoma with SAT verbal scores
ranging from 450-600 in their first semester of composition. The twenty ex-
perienced adult writers from Boston and Oklahoma City included journalists,
editors, and academics. To refer to the two groups, I use the terms student
writers and experienced writers because the principal difference between these
two groups is the amount of experience they have had in writing.

Each writer wrote three essays, expressive, explanatory, and persuasive,
and rewrote each essay twice, producing nine written products in draft and
final form. Each writer was interviewed three times after the final revision of

each essay. And each writer suggested revisions for a composition written by
an anonymous author. Thus extensive written and spoken documents were
obtained from each writer.

The essays were analyzed by counting and categorizing the changes made.
Four revision operations were identified: deletion, substitution, addition, and
reordering. And four levels of changes were identified: word, phrase, sen-
tence, theme (the extended statement of one idea). A coding system was
developed for identifying the frequency of revision by level and operation. In
addition, transcripts of the interviews in which the writers interpreted their
revisions were used to develop what was called a scale of concerns for each
writer. This scale enabled me to codify what were the writer’s primary con-
cerns, secondary concerns, tertiary concerns, and whether the writers used
the same scale of concerns when revising the second or third drafts as they
used in revising the first draft.

Revision Strategies of Student Writers

Most of the students I studied did not use the terms revision or rewriting. In
fact, they did not seem comfortable using the word revision and explained
that revision was not a word they used, but the word their teachers used.
Instead, most of the students had developed various functional terms to de-
scribe the type of changes they made. The following are samples of these
definitions:

Scratch Out and Do Over Again: “I say scratch out and do over, and that
means what it says. Scratching out and cutting out. I read what I have
written and I cross out a word and put another word in; a more decent

series of studies over the past three years which examined the revision pro-
cesses of student writers and experienced writers to see what role revision
played in their writing processes. In the course of my work the revision
process was redefined as a sequence of changes in a composition-changes which
are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work.
Methodology
I used a case study approach. The student writers were twenty freshmen at
Boston University and the University of Oklahoma with SAT verbal scores
ranging from 450-600 in their first semester of composition. The twenty ex-
perienced adult writers from Boston and Oklahoma City included journalists,
editors, and academics. To refer to the two groups, I use the terms student
writers and experienced writers because the principal difference between these
two groups is the amount of experience they have had in writing.
Each writer wrote three essays, expressive, explanatory, and persuasive,
and rewrote each essay twice, producing nine written products in draft and
final form. Each writer was interviewed three times after the final revision of
each essay. And each writer suggested revisions for a composition written by
an anonymous author. Thus extensive written and spoken documents were
obtained from each writer.
The essays were analyzed by counting and categorizing the changes made.
Four revision operations were identified: deletion, substitution, addition, and
reordering. And four levels of changes were identified: word, phrase, sen-
tence, theme (the extended statement of one idea). A coding system was
developed for identifying the frequency of revision by level and operation. In
addition, transcripts of the interviews in which the writers interpreted their
revisions were used to develop what was called a scale of concerns for each
writer. This scale enabled me to codify what were the writer’s primary con-
cerns, secondary concerns, tertiary concerns, and whether the writers used
the same scale of concerns when revising the second or third drafts as they
used in revising the first draft.
Revision Strategies of Student Writers
Most of the students I studied did not use the terms revision or rewriting. In
fact, they did not seem comfortable using the word revision and explained
that revision was not a word they used, but the word their teachers used.
Instead, most of the students had developed various functional terms to de-
scribe the type of changes they made. The following are samples of these
definitions:
Scratch Out and Do Over Again: “I say scratch out and do over, and that
means what it says. Scratching out and cutting out. I read what I have
written and I cross out a word and put another word in; a more decent
series of studies over the past three years which examined the revision pro-
cesses of student writers and experienced writers to see what role revision
played in their writing processes. In the course of my work the revision
process was redefined as a sequence of changes in a composition-changes which
are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work.
Methodology
I used a case study approach. The student writers were twenty freshmen at
Boston University and the University of Oklahoma with SAT verbal scores
ranging from 450-600 in their first semester of composition. The twenty ex-
perienced adult writers from Boston and Oklahoma City included journalists,
editors, and academics. To refer to the two groups, I use the terms student
writers and experienced writers because the principal difference between these
two groups is the amount of experience they have had in writing.
Each writer wrote three essays, expressive, explanatory, and persuasive,
and rewrote each essay twice, producing nine written products in draft and
final form. Each writer was interviewed three times after the final revision of
each essay. And each writer suggested revisions for a composition written by
an anonymous author. Thus extensive written and spoken documents were
obtained from each writer.
The essays were analyzed by counting and categorizing the changes made.
Four revision operations were identified: deletion, substitution, addition, and
reordering. And four levels of changes were identified: word, phrase, sen-
tence, theme (the extended statement of one idea). A coding system was
developed for identifying the frequency of revision by level and operation. In
addition, transcripts of the interviews in which the writers interpreted their
revisions were used to develop what was called a scale of concerns for each
writer. This scale enabled me to codify what were the writer’s primary con-
cerns, secondary concerns, tertiary concerns, and whether the writers used
the same scale of concerns when revising the second or third drafts as they
used in revising the first draft.
Revision Strategies of Student Writers
Most of the students I studied did not use the terms revision or rewriting. In
fact, they did not seem comfortable using the word revision and explained
that revision was not a word they used, but the word their teachers used.
Instead, most of the students had developed various functional terms to de-
scribe the type of changes they made. The following are samples of these
definitions:
Scratch Out and Do Over Again: “I say scratch out and do over, and that
means what it says. Scratching out and cutting out. I read what I have
written and I cross out a word and put another word in; a more decent

380 380 380

This content downloaded from 130.86.12.250 on Thu, 08 Feb 2018 07:18:17 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Revision Strategies 381

word or a better word. Then if there is somewhere to use a sentence that

I have crossed out, I will put it there.”

Reviewing: “Reviewing means just using better words and eliminating
words that are not needed. I go over and change words around.”

Reviewing: “I just review every word and make sure that everything is
worded right. I see if I am rambling; I see if I can put a better word in or
leave one out. Usually when I read what I have written, I say to myself,
‘that word is so bland or so trite,’ and then I go and get my thesaurus.”

Redoing: “Redoing means cleaning up the paper and crossing out. It is
looking at something and saying, no that has to go, or no, that is not
right.”

Marking Out: “I don’t use the word rewriting because I only write one
draft and the changes that I make are made on top of the draft. The
changes that I make are usually just marking out words and putting dif-
ferent ones in.”

Slashing and Throwing Out: “I throw things out and say they are not good.
I like to write like Fitzgerald did by inspiration, and if I feel inspired then
I don’t need to slash and throw much out.”

The predominant concern in these definitions is vocabulary. The students
understand the revision process as a rewording activity. They do so because
they perceive words as the unit of written discourse. That is, they concen-
trate on particular words apart from their role in the text. Thus one student
quoted above thinks in terms of dictionaries, and, following the eighteenth
century theory of words parodied in Gulliver’s Travels, he imagines a load of
things carried about to be exchanged. Lexical changes are the major revision
activities of the students because economy is their goal. They are governed,
like the linear model itself, by the Law of Occam’s razor that prohibits logi-
cally needless repetition: redundancy and superfluity. Nothing governs
speech more than such superfluities; speech constantly repeats itself precisely
because spoken words, as Barthes writes, are expendable in the cause of
communication. The aim of revision according to the students’ own descrip-
tion is therefore to clean up speech; the redundancy of speech is unnecessary
in writing, their logic suggests, because writing, unlike speech, can be reread.
Thus one student said, “Redoing means cleaning up the paper and crossing
out.” The remarkable contradiction of cleaning by marking might, indeed,
stand for student revision as I have encountered it.

The students place a symbolic importance on their selection and rejection
of words as the determiners of success or failure for their compositions.
When revising, they primarily ask themselves: can I find a better word or
phrase? A more impressive, not so cliched, or less hum-drum word? Am I
repeating the same word or phrase too often? They approach the revision
process with what could be labeled as a “thesaurus philosophy of writing”;
the students consider the thesaurus a harvest of lexical substitutions and be-
lieve that most problems in their essays can be solved by rewording. What is
revealed in the students’ use of the thesaurus is a governing attitude toward

Revision Strategies 381
word or a better word. Then if there is somewhere to use a sentence that
I have crossed out, I will put it there.”
Reviewing: “Reviewing means just using better words and eliminating
words that are not needed. I go over and change words around.”
Reviewing: “I just review every word and make sure that everything is
worded right. I see if I am rambling; I see if I can put a better word in or
leave one out. Usually when I read what I have written, I say to myself,
‘that word is so bland or so trite,’ and then I go and get my thesaurus.”
Redoing: “Redoing means cleaning up the paper and crossing out. It is
looking at something and saying, no that has to go, or no, that is not
right.”
Marking Out: “I don’t use the word rewriting because I only write one
draft and the changes that I make are made on top of the draft. The
changes that I make are usually just marking out words and putting dif-
ferent ones in.”
Slashing and Throwing Out: “I throw things out and say they are not good.
I like to write like Fitzgerald did by inspiration, and if I feel inspired then
I don’t need to slash and throw much out.”
The predominant concern in these definitions is vocabulary. The students
understand the revision process as a rewording activity. They do so because
they perceive words as the unit of written discourse. That is, they concen-
trate on particular words apart from their role in the text. Thus one student
quoted above thinks in terms of dictionaries, and, following the eighteenth
century theory of words parodied in Gulliver’s Travels, he imagines a load of
things carried about to be exchanged. Lexical changes are the major revision
activities of the students because economy is their goal. They are governed,
like the linear model itself, by the Law of Occam’s razor that prohibits logi-
cally needless repetition: redundancy and superfluity. Nothing governs
speech more than such superfluities; speech constantly repeats itself precisely
because spoken words, as Barthes writes, are expendable in the cause of
communication. The aim of revision according to the students’ own descrip-
tion is therefore to clean up speech; the redundancy of speech is unnecessary
in writing, their logic suggests, because writing, unlike speech, can be reread.
Thus one student said, “Redoing means cleaning up the paper and crossing
out.” The remarkable contradiction of cleaning by marking might, indeed,
stand for student revision as I have encountered it.
The students place a symbolic importance on their selection and rejection
of words as the determiners of success or failure for their compositions.
When revising, they primarily ask themselves: can I find a better word or
phrase? A more impressive, not so cliched, or less hum-drum word? Am I
repeating the same word or phrase too often? They approach the revision
process with what could be labeled as a “thesaurus philosophy of writing”;
the students consider the thesaurus a harvest of lexical substitutions and be-
lieve that most problems in their essays can be solved by rewording. What is
revealed in the students’ use of the thesaurus is a governing attitude toward
Revision Strategies 381
word or a better word. Then if there is somewhere to use a sentence that
I have crossed out, I will put it there.”
Reviewing: “Reviewing means just using better words and eliminating
words that are not needed. I go over and change words around.”
Reviewing: “I just review every word and make sure that everything is
worded right. I see if I am rambling; I see if I can put a better word in or
leave one out. Usually when I read what I have written, I say to myself,
‘that word is so bland or so trite,’ and then I go and get my thesaurus.”
Redoing: “Redoing means cleaning up the paper and crossing out. It is
looking at something and saying, no that has to go, or no, that is not
right.”
Marking Out: “I don’t use the word rewriting because I only write one
draft and the changes that I make are made on top of the draft. The
changes that I make are usually just marking out words and putting dif-
ferent ones in.”
Slashing and Throwing Out: “I throw things out and say they are not good.
I like to write like Fitzgerald did by inspiration, and if I feel inspired then
I don’t need to slash and throw much out.”
The predominant concern in these definitions is vocabulary. The students
understand the revision process as a rewording activity. They do so because
they perceive words as the unit of written discourse. That is, they concen-
trate on particular words apart from their role in the text. Thus one student
quoted above thinks in terms of dictionaries, and, following the eighteenth
century theory of words parodied in Gulliver’s Travels, he imagines a load of
things carried about to be exchanged. Lexical changes are the major revision
activities of the students because economy is their goal. They are governed,
like the linear model itself, by the Law of Occam’s razor that prohibits logi-
cally needless repetition: redundancy and superfluity. Nothing governs
speech more than such superfluities; speech constantly repeats itself precisely
because spoken words, as Barthes writes, are expendable in the cause of
communication. The aim of revision according to the students’ own descrip-
tion is therefore to clean up speech; the redundancy of speech is unnecessary
in writing, their logic suggests, because writing, unlike speech, can be reread.
Thus one student said, “Redoing means cleaning up the paper and crossing
out.” The remarkable contradiction of cleaning by marking might, indeed,
stand for student revision as I have encountered it.
The students place a symbolic importance on their selection and rejection
of words as the determiners of success or failure for their compositions.
When revising, they primarily ask themselves: can I find a better word or
phrase? A more impressive, not so cliched, or less hum-drum word? Am I
repeating the same word or phrase too often? They approach the revision
process with what could be labeled as a “thesaurus philosophy of writing”;
the students consider the thesaurus a harvest of lexical substitutions and be-
lieve that most problems in their essays can be solved by rewording. What is
revealed in the students’ use of the thesaurus is a governing attitude toward
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College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication

their writing: that the meaning to be communicated is already there, already
finished, already produced, ready to be communicated, and all that is neces-
sary is a better word “rightly worded.” One student defined revision as “re-
doing”; “redoing” meant “just using better words and eliminating words that
are not needed.” For the students, writing is translating: the thought to the
page, the language of speech to the more formal language of prose, the word
to its synonym. Whatever is translated, an original text already exists for
students, one which need not be discovered or acted upon, but simply com-
municated.7

The students list repetition as one of the elements they most worry about.
This cue signals to them that they need to eliminate the repetition either by
substituting or deleting words or phrases. Repetition occurs, in large part,
because student writing imitates-transcribes-speech: attention to repeti-
tious words is a manner of cleaning speech. Without a sense of the develop-
mental possibilities of revision (and writing in general) students seek, on the
authority of many textbooks, simply to clean up their language and prepare
to type. What is curious, however, is that students are aware of lexical repeti-
tion, but not conceptual repetition. They only notice the repetition if they
can “hear” it; they do not diagnose lexical repetition as symptomatic of prob-
lems on a deeper level. By rewording their sentences to avoid the lexical
repetition, the students solve the immediate problem, but blind themselves
to problems on a textual level; although they are using different words, they
are sometimes merely restating the same idea with different words. Such
blindness, as I discovered with student writers, is the inability to “see” revi-
sion as a process: the inability to “re-view” their work again, as it were, with
different eyes, and to start over.

The revision strategies described above are consistent with the students’
understanding of the revision process as requiring lexical changes but not
semantic changes. For the students, the extent to which they revise is a func-
tion of their level of inspiration. In fact, they use the word inspiration to
describe the ease or difficulty with which their essay is written, and the ex-
tent to which the essay needs to be revised. If students feel inspired, if the
writing comes easily, and if they don’t get stuck on individual words or
phrases, then they say that they cannot see any reason to revise. Because
students do not see revision as an activity in which they modify and develop
perspectives and ideas, they feel that if they know what they want to say,
then there is little reason for making revisions.

The only modification of ideas in the students’ essays occurred when they
tried out two or three introductory paragraphs. This results, in part, because
the students have been taught in another version of the linear model of com-
posing to use a thesis statement as a controlling device in their introductory
paragraphs. Since they write their introductions and their thesis statements
even before they have really discovered what they want to say, their early
close attention to the thesis statement, and more generally the linear model,

their writing: that the meaning to be communicated is already there, already
finished, already produced, ready to be communicated, and all that is neces-
sary is a better word “rightly worded.” One student defined revision as “re-
doing”; “redoing” meant “just using better words and eliminating words that
are not needed.” For the students, writing is translating: the thought to the
page, the language of speech to the more formal language of prose, the word
to its synonym. Whatever is translated, an original text already exists for
students, one which need not be discovered or acted upon, but simply com-
municated.7
The students list repetition as one of the elements they most worry about.
This cue signals to them that they need to eliminate the repetition either by
substituting or deleting words or phrases. Repetition occurs, in large part,
because student writing imitates-transcribes-speech: attention to repeti-
tious words is a manner of cleaning speech. Without a sense of the develop-
mental possibilities of revision (and writing in general) students seek, on the
authority of many textbooks, simply to clean up their language and prepare
to type. What is curious, however, is that students are aware of lexical repeti-
tion, but not conceptual repetition. They only notice the repetition if they
can “hear” it; they do not diagnose lexical repetition as symptomatic of prob-
lems on a deeper level. By rewording their sentences to avoid the lexical
repetition, the students solve the immediate problem, but blind themselves
to problems on a textual level; although they are using different words, they
are sometimes merely restating the same idea with different words. Such
blindness, as I discovered with student writers, is the inability to “see” revi-
sion as a process: the inability to “re-view” their work again, as it were, with
different eyes, and to start over.
The revision strategies described above are consistent with the students’
understanding of the revision process as requiring lexical changes but not
semantic changes. For the students, the extent to which they revise is a func-
tion of their level of inspiration. In fact, they use the word inspiration to
describe the ease or difficulty with which their essay is written, and the ex-
tent to which the essay needs to be revised. If students feel inspired, if the
writing comes easily, and if they don’t get stuck on individual words or
phrases, then they say that they cannot see any reason to revise. Because
students do not see revision as an activity in which they modify and develop
perspectives and ideas, they feel that if they know what they want to say,
then there is little reason for making revisions.
The only modification of ideas in the students’ essays occurred when they
tried out two or three introductory paragraphs. This results, in part, because
the students have been taught in another version of the linear model of com-
posing to use a thesis statement as a controlling device in their introductory
paragraphs. Since they write their introductions and their thesis statements
even before they have really discovered what they want to say, their early
close attention to the thesis statement, and more generally the linear model,
their writing: that the meaning to be communicated is already there, already
finished, already produced, ready to be communicated, and all that is neces-
sary is a better word “rightly worded.” One student defined revision as “re-
doing”; “redoing” meant “just using better words and eliminating words that
are not needed.” For the students, writing is translating: the thought to the
page, the language of speech to the more formal language of prose, the word
to its synonym. Whatever is translated, an original text already exists for
students, one which need not be discovered or acted upon, but simply com-
municated.7
The students list repetition as one of the elements they most worry about.
This cue signals to them that they need to eliminate the repetition either by
substituting or deleting words or phrases. Repetition occurs, in large part,
because student writing imitates-transcribes-speech: attention to repeti-
tious words is a manner of cleaning speech. Without a sense of the develop-
mental possibilities of revision (and writing in general) students seek, on the
authority of many textbooks, simply to clean up their language and prepare
to type. What is curious, however, is that students are aware of lexical repeti-
tion, but not conceptual repetition. They only notice the repetition if they
can “hear” it; they do not diagnose lexical repetition as symptomatic of prob-
lems on a deeper level. By rewording their sentences to avoid the lexical
repetition, the students solve the immediate problem, but blind themselves
to problems on a textual level; although they are using different words, they
are sometimes merely restating the same idea with different words. Such
blindness, as I discovered with student writers, is the inability to “see” revi-
sion as a process: the inability to “re-view” their work again, as it were, with
different eyes, and to start over.
The revision strategies described above are consistent with the students’
understanding of the revision process as requiring lexical changes but not
semantic changes. For the students, the extent to which they revise is a func-
tion of their level of inspiration. In fact, they use the word inspiration to
describe the ease or difficulty with which their essay is written, and the ex-
tent to which the essay needs to be revised. If students feel inspired, if the
writing comes easily, and if they don’t get stuck on individual words or
phrases, then they say that they cannot see any reason to revise. Because
students do not see revision as an activity in which they modify and develop
perspectives and ideas, they feel that if they know what they want to say,
then there is little reason for making revisions.
The only modification of ideas in the students’ essays occurred when they
tried out two or three introductory paragraphs. This results, in part, because
the students have been taught in another version of the linear model of com-
posing to use a thesis statement as a controlling device in their introductory
paragraphs. Since they write their introductions and their thesis statements
even before they have really discovered what they want to say, their early
close attention to the thesis statement, and more generally the linear model,

382 382 382

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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

function to restrict and circumscribe not only the development of their ideas,
but also their ability to change the direction of these ideas.

Too often as composition teachers we conclude that students do not will-
ingly revise. The evidence from my research suggests that it is not that stu-
dents are unwilling to revise, but rather that they do what they have been
taught to do in a consistently narrow and predictable way. On every occasion
when I asked students why they hadn’t made any more changes, they essen-
tially replied, “I knew something larger was wrong, but I didn’t think it
would help to move words around.” The students have strategies for han-
dling words and phrases and their strategies helped them on a word or sen-
tence level. What they lack, however, is a set of strategies to help them
identify the “something larger” that they sensed was wrong and work from
there. The students do not have strategies for handling the whole essay. They
lack procedures or heuristics to help them reorder lines of reasoning or ask
questions about their purposes and readers. The students view their composi-
tions in a linear way as a series of parts. Even such potentially useful concepts
as “unity” or “form” are reduced to the rule that a composition, if it is to
have form, must have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, or the sum
total of the necessary parts.

The students decide to stop revising when they decide that they have not
violated any of the rules for revising. These rules, such as “Never begin a
sentence with a conjunction” or “Never end a sentence with a preposition,”
are lexically cued and rigidly applied. In general, students will subordinate
the demands of the specific problems of their text to the demands of the
rules. Changes are made in compliance with abstract rules about the product,
rules that quite often do not apply to the specific problems in the text. These
revision strategies are teacher-based, directed towards a teacher-reader who
expects compliance with rules-with pre-existing “conceptions”-and who
will only examine parts of the composition (writing comments about those
parts in the margins of their essays) and will cite any violations of rules in
those parts. At best the students see their writing altogether passively
through the eyes of former teachers or their surrogates, the textbooks, and
are bound to the rules which they have been taught.

Revision Strategies of Experienced Writers

One aim of my research has been to contrast how student writers define
revision with how a group of experienced writers define their revision pro-
cesses. Here is a sampling of the definitions from the experienced writers:

Rewriting. “It is a matter of looking at the kernel of what I have written,
the content, and then thinking about it, responding to it, making deci-
sions, and actually restructuring it.”

Rewriting: “I rewrite as I write. It is hard to tell what is a first draft
because it is not determined by time. In one draft, I might cross out three

function to restrict and circumscribe not only the development of their ideas,
but also their ability to change the direction of these ideas.
Too often as composition teachers we conclude that students do not will-
ingly revise. The evidence from my research suggests that it is not that stu-
dents are unwilling to revise, but rather that they do what they have been
taught to do in a consistently narrow and predictable way. On every occasion
when I asked students why they hadn’t made any more changes, they essen-
tially replied, “I knew something larger was wrong, but I didn’t think it
would help to move words around.” The students have strategies for han-
dling words and phrases and their strategies helped them on a word or sen-
tence level. What they lack, however, is a set of strategies to help them
identify the “something larger” that they sensed was wrong and work from
there. The students do not have strategies for handling the whole essay. They
lack procedures or heuristics to help them reorder lines of reasoning or ask
questions about their purposes and readers. The students view their composi-
tions in a linear way as a series of parts. Even such potentially useful concepts
as “unity” or “form” are reduced to the rule that a composition, if it is to
have form, must have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, or the sum
total of the necessary parts.
The students decide to stop revising when they decide that they have not
violated any of the rules for revising. These rules, such as “Never begin a
sentence with a conjunction” or “Never end a sentence with a preposition,”
are lexically cued and rigidly applied. In general, students will subordinate
the demands of the specific problems of their text to the demands of the
rules. Changes are made in compliance with abstract rules about the product,
rules that quite often do not apply to the specific problems in the text. These
revision strategies are teacher-based, directed towards a teacher-reader who
expects compliance with rules-with pre-existing “conceptions”-and who
will only examine parts of the composition (writing comments about those
parts in the margins of their essays) and will cite any violations of rules in
those parts. At best the students see their writing altogether passively
through the eyes of former teachers or their surrogates, the textbooks, and
are bound to the rules which they have been taught.
Revision Strategies of Experienced Writers
One aim of my research has been to contrast how student writers define
revision with how a group of experienced writers define their revision pro-
cesses. Here is a sampling of the definitions from the experienced writers:
Rewriting. “It is a matter of looking at the kernel of what I have written,
the content, and then thinking about it, responding to it, making deci-
sions, and actually restructuring it.”
Rewriting: “I rewrite as I write. It is hard to tell what is a first draft
because it is not determined by time. In one draft, I might cross out three
function to restrict and circumscribe not only the development of their ideas,
but also their ability to change the direction of these ideas.
Too often as composition teachers we conclude that students do not will-
ingly revise. The evidence from my research suggests that it is not that stu-
dents are unwilling to revise, but rather that they do what they have been
taught to do in a consistently narrow and predictable way. On every occasion
when I asked students why they hadn’t made any more changes, they essen-
tially replied, “I knew something larger was wrong, but I didn’t think it
would help to move words around.” The students have strategies for han-
dling words and phrases and their strategies helped them on a word or sen-
tence level. What they lack, however, is a set of strategies to help them
identify the “something larger” that they sensed was wrong and work from
there. The students do not have strategies for handling the whole essay. They
lack procedures or heuristics to help them reorder lines of reasoning or ask
questions about their purposes and readers. The students view their composi-
tions in a linear way as a series of parts. Even such potentially useful concepts
as “unity” or “form” are reduced to the rule that a composition, if it is to
have form, must have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, or the sum
total of the necessary parts.
The students decide to stop revising when they decide that they have not
violated any of the rules for revising. These rules, such as “Never begin a
sentence with a conjunction” or “Never end a sentence with a preposition,”
are lexically cued and rigidly applied. In general, students will subordinate
the demands of the specific problems of their text to the demands of the
rules. Changes are made in compliance with abstract rules about the product,
rules that quite often do not apply to the specific problems in the text. These
revision strategies are teacher-based, directed towards a teacher-reader who
expects compliance with rules-with pre-existing “conceptions”-and who
will only examine parts of the composition (writing comments about those
parts in the margins of their essays) and will cite any violations of rules in
those parts. At best the students see their writing altogether passively
through the eyes of former teachers or their surrogates, the textbooks, and
are bound to the rules which they have been taught.
Revision Strategies of Experienced Writers
One aim of my research has been to contrast how student writers define
revision with how a group of experienced writers define their revision pro-
cesses. Here is a sampling of the definitions from the experienced writers:
Rewriting. “It is a matter of looking at the kernel of what I have written,
the content, and then thinking about it, responding to it, making deci-
sions, and actually restructuring it.”
Rewriting: “I rewrite as I write. It is hard to tell what is a first draft
because it is not determined by time. In one draft, I might cross out three

Revision Strategies Revision Strategies Revision Strategies 383 383 383

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College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication

pages, write two, cross out a fourth, rewrite it, and call it a draft. I am
constantly writing and rewriting. I can only conceptualize so much in my
first draft-only so much information can be held in my head at one time;
my rewriting efforts are a reflection of how much information I can en-
compass at one time. There are levels and agenda which I have to attend
to in each draft.”

Rewriting. “Rewriting means on one level, finding the argument, and on
another level, language changes to make the argument more effective.
Most of the time I feel as if I can go on rewriting forever. There is always
one part of a piece that I could keep working on. It is always difficult to
know at what point to abandon a piece of writing. I like this idea that a
piece of writing is never finished, just abandoned.”

Rewriting: “My first draft is usually very scattered. In rewriting, I find the
line of argument. After the argument is resolved, I am much more in-
terested in word choice and phrasing.”
Revising: “My cardinal rule in revising is never to fall in love with what I
have written in a first or second draft. An idea, sentence, or even a phrase
that looks catchy, I don’t trust. Part of this idea is to wait a while. I am
much more in love with something after I have written it than I am a day
or two later. It is much easier to change anything with time.”

Revising: “It means taking apart what I have written and putting it back
together again. I ask major theoretical questions of my ideas, respond to
those questions, and think of proportion and structure, and try to find a
controlling metaphor. I find out which ideas can be developed and which
should be dropped. I am constantly chiseling and changing as I revise.”

The experienced writers describe their primary objective when revising as
finding the form or shape of their argument. Although the metaphors vary,
the experienced writers often use structural expressions such as “finding a
framework,” “a pattern,” or “a design” for their argument. When questioned
about this emphasis, the experienced writers responded that since their first
drafts are usually scattered attempts to define their territory, their objective
in the second draft is to begin observing general patterns of development and
deciding what should be included and what excluded. One writer explained,
“I have learned from experience that I need to keep writing a first draft until
I figure out what I want to say. Then in a second draft, I begin to see the
structure of an argument and how all the various sub-arguments which are
buried beneath the surface of all those sentences are related.” What is de-

scribed here is a process in which the writer is both agent and vehicle. “Writ-
ing,” says Barthes, unlike speech, “develops like a seed, not a line,”8 and like
a seed it confuses beginning and end, conception and production. Thus, the
experienced writers say their drafts are “not determined by time,” that re-
writing is a “constant process,” that they feel as if (they) “can go on forever.”
Revising confuses the beginning and end, the agent and vehicle; it confuses,
in order to find, the line of argument.

After a concern for form, the experienced writers have a second objective:
a concern for their readership. In this way, “production” precedes “concep-

pages, write two, cross out a fourth, rewrite it, and call it a draft. I am
constantly writing and rewriting. I can only conceptualize so much in my
first draft-only so much information can be held in my head at one time;
my rewriting efforts are a reflection of how much information I can en-
compass at one time. There are levels and agenda which I have to attend
to in each draft.”
Rewriting. “Rewriting means on one level, finding the argument, and on
another level, language changes to make the argument more effective.
Most of the time I feel as if I can go on rewriting forever. There is always
one part of a piece that I could keep working on. It is always difficult to
know at what point to abandon a piece of writing. I like this idea that a
piece of writing is never finished, just abandoned.”
Rewriting: “My first draft is usually very scattered. In rewriting, I find the
line of argument. After the argument is resolved, I am much more in-
terested in word choice and phrasing.”
Revising: “My cardinal rule in revising is never to fall in love with what I
have written in a first or second draft. An idea, sentence, or even a phrase
that looks catchy, I don’t trust. Part of this idea is to wait a while. I am
much more in love with something after I have written it than I am a day
or two later. It is much easier to change anything with time.”
Revising: “It means taking apart what I have written and putting it back
together again. I ask major theoretical questions of my ideas, respond to
those questions, and think of proportion and structure, and try to find a
controlling metaphor. I find out which ideas can be developed and which
should be dropped. I am constantly chiseling and changing as I revise.”
The experienced writers describe their primary objective when revising as
finding the form or shape of their argument. Although the metaphors vary,
the experienced writers often use structural expressions such as “finding a
framework,” “a pattern,” or “a design” for their argument. When questioned
about this emphasis, the experienced writers responded that since their first
drafts are usually scattered attempts to define their territory, their objective
in the second draft is to begin observing general patterns of development and
deciding what should be included and what excluded. One writer explained,
“I have learned from experience that I need to keep writing a first draft until
I figure out what I want to say. Then in a second draft, I begin to see the
structure of an argument and how all the various sub-arguments which are
buried beneath the surface of all those sentences are related.” What is de-
scribed here is a process in which the writer is both agent and vehicle. “Writ-
ing,” says Barthes, unlike speech, “develops like a seed, not a line,”8 and like
a seed it confuses beginning and end, conception and production. Thus, the
experienced writers say their drafts are “not determined by time,” that re-
writing is a “constant process,” that they feel as if (they) “can go on forever.”
Revising confuses the beginning and end, the agent and vehicle; it confuses,
in order to find, the line of argument.
After a concern for form, the experienced writers have a second objective:
a concern for their readership. In this way, “production” precedes “concep-
pages, write two, cross out a fourth, rewrite it, and call it a draft. I am
constantly writing and rewriting. I can only conceptualize so much in my
first draft-only so much information can be held in my head at one time;
my rewriting efforts are a reflection of how much information I can en-
compass at one time. There are levels and agenda which I have to attend
to in each draft.”
Rewriting. “Rewriting means on one level, finding the argument, and on
another level, language changes to make the argument more effective.
Most of the time I feel as if I can go on rewriting forever. There is always
one part of a piece that I could keep working on. It is always difficult to
know at what point to abandon a piece of writing. I like this idea that a
piece of writing is never finished, just abandoned.”
Rewriting: “My first draft is usually very scattered. In rewriting, I find the
line of argument. After the argument is resolved, I am much more in-
terested in word choice and phrasing.”
Revising: “My cardinal rule in revising is never to fall in love with what I
have written in a first or second draft. An idea, sentence, or even a phrase
that looks catchy, I don’t trust. Part of this idea is to wait a while. I am
much more in love with something after I have written it than I am a day
or two later. It is much easier to change anything with time.”
Revising: “It means taking apart what I have written and putting it back
together again. I ask major theoretical questions of my ideas, respond to
those questions, and think of proportion and structure, and try to find a
controlling metaphor. I find out which ideas can be developed and which
should be dropped. I am constantly chiseling and changing as I revise.”
The experienced writers describe their primary objective when revising as
finding the form or shape of their argument. Although the metaphors vary,
the experienced writers often use structural expressions such as “finding a
framework,” “a pattern,” or “a design” for their argument. When questioned
about this emphasis, the experienced writers responded that since their first
drafts are usually scattered attempts to define their territory, their objective
in the second draft is to begin observing general patterns of development and
deciding what should be included and what excluded. One writer explained,
“I have learned from experience that I need to keep writing a first draft until
I figure out what I want to say. Then in a second draft, I begin to see the
structure of an argument and how all the various sub-arguments which are
buried beneath the surface of all those sentences are related.” What is de-
scribed here is a process in which the writer is both agent and vehicle. “Writ-
ing,” says Barthes, unlike speech, “develops like a seed, not a line,”8 and like
a seed it confuses beginning and end, conception and production. Thus, the
experienced writers say their drafts are “not determined by time,” that re-
writing is a “constant process,” that they feel as if (they) “can go on forever.”
Revising confuses the beginning and end, the agent and vehicle; it confuses,
in order to find, the line of argument.
After a concern for form, the experienced writers have a second objective:
a concern for their readership. In this way, “production” precedes “concep-

384 384 384

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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

tion.” The experienced writers imagine a reader (reading their product)
whose existence and whose expectations influence their revision process.
They have abstracted the standards of a reader and this reader seems to be
partially a reflection of themselves and functions as a critical and productive
collaborator-a collaborator who has yet to love their work. The anticipation
of a reader’s judgment causes a feeling of dissonance when the writer recog-
nizes incongruities between intention and execution, and requires these writ-
ers to make revisions on all levels. Such a reader gives them just what the
students lacked: new eyes to “re-view” their work. The experienced writers
believe that they have learned the causes and conditions, the product, which
will influence their reader, and their revision strategies are geared towards
creating these causes and conditions. They demonstrate a complex un-
derstanding of which examples, sentences, or phrases should be included or
excluded. For example, one experienced writer decided to delete public
examples and add private examples when writing about the energy crisis be-
cause “private examples would be less controversial and thus more persua-
sive.” Another writer revised his transitional sentences because “some kinds

of transitions are more easily recognized as transitions than others.” These
examples represent the type of strategic attempts these experienced writers
use to manipulate the conventions of discourse in order to communicate to
their reader.

But these revision strategies are a process of more than communication;
they are part of the process of discovering meaning altogether. Here we can
see the importance of dissonance; at the heart of revision is the process by
which writers recognize and resolve the dissonance they sense in their writ-
ing. Ferdinand de Saussure has argued that meaning is differential or “diacrit-
ical,” based on differences between terms rather than “essential” or inherent
qualities of terms. “Phonemes,” he said, “are characterized not, as one might
think, by their own positive quality but simply by the fact that they are dis-
tinct.”9 In fact, Saussure bases his entire Course in General Linguistics on
these differences, and such differences are dissonant; like musical disso-
nances which gain their significance from their relationship to the “key” of
the composition which itself is determined by the whole language, specific
language (parole) gains its meaning from the system of language (langue) of
which it is a manifestation and part. The musical composition-a “composi-
tion” of parts-creates its “key” as in an over-all structure which determines
the value (meaning) of its parts. The analogy with music is readily seen in the
compositions of experienced writers: both sorts of composition are based
precisely on those structures experienced writers seek in their writing. It is
this complicated relationship between the parts and the whole in the work of
experienced writers which destroys the linear model; writing cannot develop
“like a line” because each addition or deletion is a reordering of the whole.
Explicating Saussure, Jonathan Culler asserts that “meaning depends on dif-
ference of meaning.”10 But student writers constantly struggle to bring their

tion.” The experienced writers imagine a reader (reading their product)
whose existence and whose expectations influence their revision process.
They have abstracted the standards of a reader and this reader seems to be
partially a reflection of themselves and functions as a critical and productive
collaborator-a collaborator who has yet to love their work. The anticipation
of a reader’s judgment causes a feeling of dissonance when the writer recog-
nizes incongruities between intention and execution, and requires these writ-
ers to make revisions on all levels. Such a reader gives them just what the
students lacked: new eyes to “re-view” their work. The experienced writers
believe that they have learned the causes and conditions, the product, which
will influence their reader, and their revision strategies are geared towards
creating these causes and conditions. They demonstrate a complex un-
derstanding of which examples, sentences, or phrases should be included or
excluded. For example, one experienced writer decided to delete public
examples and add private examples when writing about the energy crisis be-
cause “private examples would be less controversial and thus more persua-
sive.” Another writer revised his transitional sentences because “some kinds
of transitions are more easily recognized as transitions than others.” These
examples represent the type of strategic attempts these experienced writers
use to manipulate the conventions of discourse in order to communicate to
their reader.
But these revision strategies are a process of more than communication;
they are part of the process of discovering meaning altogether. Here we can
see the importance of dissonance; at the heart of revision is the process by
which writers recognize and resolve the dissonance they sense in their writ-
ing. Ferdinand de Saussure has argued that meaning is differential or “diacrit-
ical,” based on differences between terms rather than “essential” or inherent
qualities of terms. “Phonemes,” he said, “are characterized not, as one might
think, by their own positive quality but simply by the fact that they are dis-
tinct.”9 In fact, Saussure bases his entire Course in General Linguistics on
these differences, and such differences are dissonant; like musical disso-
nances which gain their significance from their relationship to the “key” of
the composition which itself is determined by the whole language, specific
language (parole) gains its meaning from the system of language (langue) of
which it is a manifestation and part. The musical composition-a “composi-
tion” of parts-creates its “key” as in an over-all structure which determines
the value (meaning) of its parts. The analogy with music is readily seen in the
compositions of experienced writers: both sorts of composition are based
precisely on those structures experienced writers seek in their writing. It is
this complicated relationship between the parts and the whole in the work of
experienced writers which destroys the linear model; writing cannot develop
“like a line” because each addition or deletion is a reordering of the whole.
Explicating Saussure, Jonathan Culler asserts that “meaning depends on dif-
ference of meaning.”10 But student writers constantly struggle to bring their
tion.” The experienced writers imagine a reader (reading their product)
whose existence and whose expectations influence their revision process.
They have abstracted the standards of a reader and this reader seems to be
partially a reflection of themselves and functions as a critical and productive
collaborator-a collaborator who has yet to love their work. The anticipation
of a reader’s judgment causes a feeling of dissonance when the writer recog-
nizes incongruities between intention and execution, and requires these writ-
ers to make revisions on all levels. Such a reader gives them just what the
students lacked: new eyes to “re-view” their work. The experienced writers
believe that they have learned the causes and conditions, the product, which
will influence their reader, and their revision strategies are geared towards
creating these causes and conditions. They demonstrate a complex un-
derstanding of which examples, sentences, or phrases should be included or
excluded. For example, one experienced writer decided to delete public
examples and add private examples when writing about the energy crisis be-
cause “private examples would be less controversial and thus more persua-
sive.” Another writer revised his transitional sentences because “some kinds
of transitions are more easily recognized as transitions than others.” These
examples represent the type of strategic attempts these experienced writers
use to manipulate the conventions of discourse in order to communicate to
their reader.
But these revision strategies are a process of more than communication;
they are part of the process of discovering meaning altogether. Here we can
see the importance of dissonance; at the heart of revision is the process by
which writers recognize and resolve the dissonance they sense in their writ-
ing. Ferdinand de Saussure has argued that meaning is differential or “diacrit-
ical,” based on differences between terms rather than “essential” or inherent
qualities of terms. “Phonemes,” he said, “are characterized not, as one might
think, by their own positive quality but simply by the fact that they are dis-
tinct.”9 In fact, Saussure bases his entire Course in General Linguistics on
these differences, and such differences are dissonant; like musical disso-
nances which gain their significance from their relationship to the “key” of
the composition which itself is determined by the whole language, specific
language (parole) gains its meaning from the system of language (langue) of
which it is a manifestation and part. The musical composition-a “composi-
tion” of parts-creates its “key” as in an over-all structure which determines
the value (meaning) of its parts. The analogy with music is readily seen in the
compositions of experienced writers: both sorts of composition are based
precisely on those structures experienced writers seek in their writing. It is
this complicated relationship between the parts and the whole in the work of
experienced writers which destroys the linear model; writing cannot develop
“like a line” because each addition or deletion is a reordering of the whole.
Explicating Saussure, Jonathan Culler asserts that “meaning depends on dif-
ference of meaning.”10 But student writers constantly struggle to bring their

Revision Strategies Revision Strategies Revision Strategies 385 385 385

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College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication

essays into congruence with a predefined meaning. The experienced writers
do the opposite: they seek to discover (to create) meaning in the engagement
with their writing, in revision. They seek to emphasize and exploit the lack of
clarity, the differences of meaning, the dissonance, that writing as opposed to
speech allows in the possibility of revision. Writing has spatial and temporal
features not apparent in speech-words are recorded in space and fixed in
time-which is why writing is susceptible to reordering and later addition.
Such features make possible the dissonance that both provokes revision and
promises, from itself, new meaning.

For the experienced writers the heaviest concentration of changes is on the
sentence level, and the changes are predominantly by addition and deletion.
But, unlike the students, experienced writers make changes on all levels and
use all revision operations. Moreover, the operations the students fail to
use-reordering and addition-seem to require a theory of the revision
process as a totality-a theory which, in fact, encompasses the whole of the
composition. Unlike the students, the experienced writers possess a non-
linear theory in which a sense of the whole writing both precedes and grows
out of an examination of the parts. As we saw, one writer said he needed “a
first draft to figure out what to say,” and “a second draft to see the structure
of an argument buried beneath the surface.” Such a “theory” is both theoreti-
cal and strategical; once again, strategy and theory are conflated in ways that
are literally impossible for the linear model. Writing appears to be more like
a seed than a line.

Two elements of the experienced writers’ theory of the revision process
are the adoption of a holistic perspective and the perception that revision is a
recursive process. The writers ask: what does my essay as a whole need for
form, balance, rhythm, or communication. Details are added, dropped, sub-
stituted, or reordered according to their sense of what the essay needs for
emphasis and proportion. This sense, however, is constantly in flux as ideas
are developed and modified; it is constantly “re-viewed” in relation to the
parts. As their ideas change, revision becomes an attempt to make their writ-
ing consonant with that changing vision.

The experienced writers see their revision process as a recursive
process-a process with significant recurring activities-with different levels
of attention and different agenda for each cycle. During the first revision
cycle their attention is primarily directed towards narrowing the topic and
delimiting their ideas. At this point, they are not as concerned as they are
later about vocabulary and style. The experienced writers explained that they
get closer to their meaning by not limiting themselves too early to lexical
concerns. As one writer commented to explain her revision process, a com-
ment inspired by the summer 1977 New York power failure: “I feel like Con
Edison cutting off certain states to keep the generators going. In first and
second drafts, I try to cut off as much as I can of my editing generator, and in
a third draft, I try to cut off some of my idea generators, so I can make sure

essays into congruence with a predefined meaning. The experienced writers
do the opposite: they seek to discover (to create) meaning in the engagement
with their writing, in revision. They seek to emphasize and exploit the lack of
clarity, the differences of meaning, the dissonance, that writing as opposed to
speech allows in the possibility of revision. Writing has spatial and temporal
features not apparent in speech-words are recorded in space and fixed in
time-which is why writing is susceptible to reordering and later addition.
Such features make possible the dissonance that both provokes revision and
promises, from itself, new meaning.
For the experienced writers the heaviest concentration of changes is on the
sentence level, and the changes are predominantly by addition and deletion.
But, unlike the students, experienced writers make changes on all levels and
use all revision operations. Moreover, the operations the students fail to
use-reordering and addition-seem to require a theory of the revision
process as a totality-a theory which, in fact, encompasses the whole of the
composition. Unlike the students, the experienced writers possess a non-
linear theory in which a sense of the whole writing both precedes and grows
out of an examination of the parts. As we saw, one writer said he needed “a
first draft to figure out what to say,” and “a second draft to see the structure
of an argument buried beneath the surface.” Such a “theory” is both theoreti-
cal and strategical; once again, strategy and theory are conflated in ways that
are literally impossible for the linear model. Writing appears to be more like
a seed than a line.
Two elements of the experienced writers’ theory of the revision process
are the adoption of a holistic perspective and the perception that revision is a
recursive process. The writers ask: what does my essay as a whole need for
form, balance, rhythm, or communication. Details are added, dropped, sub-
stituted, or reordered according to their sense of what the essay needs for
emphasis and proportion. This sense, however, is constantly in flux as ideas
are developed and modified; it is constantly “re-viewed” in relation to the
parts. As their ideas change, revision becomes an attempt to make their writ-
ing consonant with that changing vision.
The experienced writers see their revision process as a recursive
process-a process with significant recurring activities-with different levels
of attention and different agenda for each cycle. During the first revision
cycle their attention is primarily directed towards narrowing the topic and
delimiting their ideas. At this point, they are not as concerned as they are
later about vocabulary and style. The experienced writers explained that they
get closer to their meaning by not limiting themselves too early to lexical
concerns. As one writer commented to explain her revision process, a com-
ment inspired by the summer 1977 New York power failure: “I feel like Con
Edison cutting off certain states to keep the generators going. In first and
second drafts, I try to cut off as much as I can of my editing generator, and in
a third draft, I try to cut off some of my idea generators, so I can make sure
essays into congruence with a predefined meaning. The experienced writers
do the opposite: they seek to discover (to create) meaning in the engagement
with their writing, in revision. They seek to emphasize and exploit the lack of
clarity, the differences of meaning, the dissonance, that writing as opposed to
speech allows in the possibility of revision. Writing has spatial and temporal
features not apparent in speech-words are recorded in space and fixed in
time-which is why writing is susceptible to reordering and later addition.
Such features make possible the dissonance that both provokes revision and
promises, from itself, new meaning.
For the experienced writers the heaviest concentration of changes is on the
sentence level, and the changes are predominantly by addition and deletion.
But, unlike the students, experienced writers make changes on all levels and
use all revision operations. Moreover, the operations the students fail to
use-reordering and addition-seem to require a theory of the revision
process as a totality-a theory which, in fact, encompasses the whole of the
composition. Unlike the students, the experienced writers possess a non-
linear theory in which a sense of the whole writing both precedes and grows
out of an examination of the parts. As we saw, one writer said he needed “a
first draft to figure out what to say,” and “a second draft to see the structure
of an argument buried beneath the surface.” Such a “theory” is both theoreti-
cal and strategical; once again, strategy and theory are conflated in ways that
are literally impossible for the linear model. Writing appears to be more like
a seed than a line.
Two elements of the experienced writers’ theory of the revision process
are the adoption of a holistic perspective and the perception that revision is a
recursive process. The writers ask: what does my essay as a whole need for
form, balance, rhythm, or communication. Details are added, dropped, sub-
stituted, or reordered according to their sense of what the essay needs for
emphasis and proportion. This sense, however, is constantly in flux as ideas
are developed and modified; it is constantly “re-viewed” in relation to the
parts. As their ideas change, revision becomes an attempt to make their writ-
ing consonant with that changing vision.
The experienced writers see their revision process as a recursive
process-a process with significant recurring activities-with different levels
of attention and different agenda for each cycle. During the first revision
cycle their attention is primarily directed towards narrowing the topic and
delimiting their ideas. At this point, they are not as concerned as they are
later about vocabulary and style. The experienced writers explained that they
get closer to their meaning by not limiting themselves too early to lexical
concerns. As one writer commented to explain her revision process, a com-
ment inspired by the summer 1977 New York power failure: “I feel like Con
Edison cutting off certain states to keep the generators going. In first and
second drafts, I try to cut off as much as I can of my editing generator, and in
a third draft, I try to cut off some of my idea generators, so I can make sure

386 386 386

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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Revision Strategies 387

that I will actually finish the essay.” Although the experienced writers de-
scribe their revision process as a series of different levels or cycles, it is
inaccurate to assume that they have only one objective for each cycle and
that each cycle can be defined by a different objective. The same objectives
and sub-processes are present in each cycle, but in different proportions.
Even though these experienced writers place the predominant weight upon
finding the form of their argument during the first cycle, other concerns exist
as well. Conversely, during the later cycles, when the experienced writers’
primary attention is focused upon stylistic concerns, they are still attuned,
although in a reduced way, to the form of the argument. Since writers are
limited in what they can attend to during each cycle (understandings are tem-
poral), revision strategies help balance competing demands on attention.
Thus, writers can concentrate on more than one objective at a time by de-
veloping strategies to sort out and organize their different concerns in suc-
cessive cycles of revision.
It is a sense of writing as discovery-a repeated process of beginning over
again, starting out new-that the students failed to have. I have used the
notion of dissonance because such dissonance, the incongruities between in-
tention and execution, governs both writing and meaning. Students do not
see the incongruities. They need to rely on their own internalized sense of
good writing and to see their writing with their “own” eyes. Seeing in
revision-seeing beyond hearing-is at the root of the word revision and the
process itself; current dicta on revising blind our students to what is actually
involved in revision. In fact, they blind them to what constitutes good writing
altogether. Good writing disturbs: it creates dissonance. Students need to
seek the dissonance of discovery, utilizing in their writing, as the experienced
writers do, the very difference between writing and speech-the possibility
of revision.

Notes

1. D. Gordon Rohman and Albert O. Wlecke, “Pre-writing: The Construction and Applica-
tion of Models for Concept Formation in Writing,” Cooperative Research Project No. 2174,
U.S. Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; James Britton, An-
thony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, Harold Rosen, The Development of Writing Abilities
(11-18) (London: Macmillan Education, 1975).

2. Britton is following Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in T. A. Sebeok, Style in
Language (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1960).

3. For an extended discussion of this issue see Nancy Sommers, “The Need for Theory in
Composition Research,” College Composition and Communication, 30 (February, 1979), 46-49.

4. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 27.

5. Roland Barthes, “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen
Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 190-191.

6. “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” p. 190.

7. Nancy Sommers and Ronald Schleifer, “Means and Ends: Some Assumptions of Student
Writers,” Composition and Teaching, II (in press).

Revision Strategies 387
that I will actually finish the essay.” Although the experienced writers de-
scribe their revision process as a series of different levels or cycles, it is
inaccurate to assume that they have only one objective for each cycle and
that each cycle can be defined by a different objective. The same objectives
and sub-processes are present in each cycle, but in different proportions.
Even though these experienced writers place the predominant weight upon
finding the form of their argument during the first cycle, other concerns exist
as well. Conversely, during the later cycles, when the experienced writers’
primary attention is focused upon stylistic concerns, they are still attuned,
although in a reduced way, to the form of the argument. Since writers are
limited in what they can attend to during each cycle (understandings are tem-
poral), revision strategies help balance competing demands on attention.
Thus, writers can concentrate on more than one objective at a time by de-
veloping strategies to sort out and organize their different concerns in suc-
cessive cycles of revision.
It is a sense of writing as discovery-a repeated process of beginning over
again, starting out new-that the students failed to have. I have used the
notion of dissonance because such dissonance, the incongruities between in-
tention and execution, governs both writing and meaning. Students do not
see the incongruities. They need to rely on their own internalized sense of
good writing and to see their writing with their “own” eyes. Seeing in
revision-seeing beyond hearing-is at the root of the word revision and the
process itself; current dicta on revising blind our students to what is actually
involved in revision. In fact, they blind them to what constitutes good writing
altogether. Good writing disturbs: it creates dissonance. Students need to
seek the dissonance of discovery, utilizing in their writing, as the experienced
writers do, the very difference between writing and speech-the possibility
of revision.
Notes
1. D. Gordon Rohman and Albert O. Wlecke, “Pre-writing: The Construction and Applica-
tion of Models for Concept Formation in Writing,” Cooperative Research Project No. 2174,
U.S. Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; James Britton, An-
thony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, Harold Rosen, The Development of Writing Abilities
(11-18) (London: Macmillan Education, 1975).
2. Britton is following Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in T. A. Sebeok, Style in
Language (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1960).
3. For an extended discussion of this issue see Nancy Sommers, “The Need for Theory in
Composition Research,” College Composition and Communication, 30 (February, 1979), 46-49.
4. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 27.
5. Roland Barthes, “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen
Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 190-191.
6. “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” p. 190.
7. Nancy Sommers and Ronald Schleifer, “Means and Ends: Some Assumptions of Student
Writers,” Composition and Teaching, II (in press).
Revision Strategies 387
that I will actually finish the essay.” Although the experienced writers de-
scribe their revision process as a series of different levels or cycles, it is
inaccurate to assume that they have only one objective for each cycle and
that each cycle can be defined by a different objective. The same objectives
and sub-processes are present in each cycle, but in different proportions.
Even though these experienced writers place the predominant weight upon
finding the form of their argument during the first cycle, other concerns exist
as well. Conversely, during the later cycles, when the experienced writers’
primary attention is focused upon stylistic concerns, they are still attuned,
although in a reduced way, to the form of the argument. Since writers are
limited in what they can attend to during each cycle (understandings are tem-
poral), revision strategies help balance competing demands on attention.
Thus, writers can concentrate on more than one objective at a time by de-
veloping strategies to sort out and organize their different concerns in suc-
cessive cycles of revision.
It is a sense of writing as discovery-a repeated process of beginning over
again, starting out new-that the students failed to have. I have used the
notion of dissonance because such dissonance, the incongruities between in-
tention and execution, governs both writing and meaning. Students do not
see the incongruities. They need to rely on their own internalized sense of
good writing and to see their writing with their “own” eyes. Seeing in
revision-seeing beyond hearing-is at the root of the word revision and the
process itself; current dicta on revising blind our students to what is actually
involved in revision. In fact, they blind them to what constitutes good writing
altogether. Good writing disturbs: it creates dissonance. Students need to
seek the dissonance of discovery, utilizing in their writing, as the experienced
writers do, the very difference between writing and speech-the possibility
of revision.
Notes
1. D. Gordon Rohman and Albert O. Wlecke, “Pre-writing: The Construction and Applica-
tion of Models for Concept Formation in Writing,” Cooperative Research Project No. 2174,
U.S. Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; James Britton, An-
thony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, Harold Rosen, The Development of Writing Abilities
(11-18) (London: Macmillan Education, 1975).
2. Britton is following Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in T. A. Sebeok, Style in
Language (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1960).
3. For an extended discussion of this issue see Nancy Sommers, “The Need for Theory in
Composition Research,” College Composition and Communication, 30 (February, 1979), 46-49.
4. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 27.
5. Roland Barthes, “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen
Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 190-191.
6. “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” p. 190.
7. Nancy Sommers and Ronald Schleifer, “Means and Ends: Some Assumptions of Student
Writers,” Composition and Teaching, II (in press).
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College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication College Composition and Communication

8. Writing Degree Zero in Writing Degree Zero and Elements of Semiology, trans. Annette Lavers
and Colin Smith (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968), p. 20.

9. Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York, 1966), p. 119.
10. Jonathan Culler, Saussure (Penguin Modern Masters Series; London: Penguin Books,

1976), p. 70.

Acknowledgment: The author wishes to express her gratitude to Professor William Smith, Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, for his vital assistance with the research reported in this article and to
Patrick Hays, her husband, for extensive discussions and critical editorial help.

8. Writing Degree Zero in Writing Degree Zero and Elements of Semiology, trans. Annette Lavers
and Colin Smith (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968), p. 20.
9. Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York, 1966), p. 119.
10. Jonathan Culler, Saussure (Penguin Modern Masters Series; London: Penguin Books,
1976), p. 70.
Acknowledgment: The author wishes to express her gratitude to Professor William Smith, Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, for his vital assistance with the research reported in this article and to
Patrick Hays, her husband, for extensive discussions and critical editorial help.
8. Writing Degree Zero in Writing Degree Zero and Elements of Semiology, trans. Annette Lavers
and Colin Smith (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968), p. 20.
9. Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York, 1966), p. 119.
10. Jonathan Culler, Saussure (Penguin Modern Masters Series; London: Penguin Books,
1976), p. 70.
Acknowledgment: The author wishes to express her gratitude to Professor William Smith, Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, for his vital assistance with the research reported in this article and to
Patrick Hays, her husband, for extensive discussions and critical editorial help.

Summer Institute in Training Peer Tutors

Brooklyn College will offer a five-week institute in training writing peer
tutors during summer, 1981, supported by a grant from the Fund for the Im-
provement of Postsecondary Education. The institute director is Kenneth A.
Bruffee. The institute is based on the program described in Paula Beck, Thom
Hawkins, and Marcia Silver, “Training and Using Peer Tutors,” College English,
December, 1978, and in Kenneth A. Bruffee, “The Brooklyn Plan: Attaining
Intellectual Growth through Peer-Group Tutoring,” Liberal Education, De-
cember, 1978; “Staffing and Operating Peer-Tutoring Writing Centers,” Basic
Writing, ed. Lawrence N. Kasden and Daniel R. Hoeber (Urbana, Ill.: NCTE,
1980); and A Short Course in Writing, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop,
1980).

Information and application forms for the 1981 institute may be obtained by
writing Marcia Silver, Project Administrator, Brooklyn College Peer Tutor
Training Institute, English Department, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N.Y.
11210. Applications must be received by April 15, 1981.

Summer Institute in Training Peer Tutors
Brooklyn College will offer a five-week institute in training writing peer
tutors during summer, 1981, supported by a grant from the Fund for the Im-
provement of Postsecondary Education. The institute director is Kenneth A.
Bruffee. The institute is based on the program described in Paula Beck, Thom
Hawkins, and Marcia Silver, “Training and Using Peer Tutors,” College English,
December, 1978, and in Kenneth A. Bruffee, “The Brooklyn Plan: Attaining
Intellectual Growth through Peer-Group Tutoring,” Liberal Education, De-
cember, 1978; “Staffing and Operating Peer-Tutoring Writing Centers,” Basic
Writing, ed. Lawrence N. Kasden and Daniel R. Hoeber (Urbana, Ill.: NCTE,
1980); and A Short Course in Writing, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop,
1980).
Information and application forms for the 1981 institute may be obtained by
writing Marcia Silver, Project Administrator, Brooklyn College Peer Tutor
Training Institute, English Department, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N.Y.
11210. Applications must be received by April 15, 1981.
Summer Institute in Training Peer Tutors
Brooklyn College will offer a five-week institute in training writing peer
tutors during summer, 1981, supported by a grant from the Fund for the Im-
provement of Postsecondary Education. The institute director is Kenneth A.
Bruffee. The institute is based on the program described in Paula Beck, Thom
Hawkins, and Marcia Silver, “Training and Using Peer Tutors,” College English,
December, 1978, and in Kenneth A. Bruffee, “The Brooklyn Plan: Attaining
Intellectual Growth through Peer-Group Tutoring,” Liberal Education, De-
cember, 1978; “Staffing and Operating Peer-Tutoring Writing Centers,” Basic
Writing, ed. Lawrence N. Kasden and Daniel R. Hoeber (Urbana, Ill.: NCTE,
1980); and A Short Course in Writing, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop,
1980).
Information and application forms for the 1981 institute may be obtained by
writing Marcia Silver, Project Administrator, Brooklyn College Peer Tutor
Training Institute, English Department, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N.Y.
11210. Applications must be received by April 15, 1981.

388 388 388

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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

• Contents

image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
image 5
image 6
image 7
image 8
image 9
image 10
image 11

• Issue Table of Contents

College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 4, Dec., 1980
Front Matter [pp. 353 – 360]
Editor’s Note [pp. 361 – 362]
Understanding Composing [pp. 363 – 369]
The Writer Writing Is Not at Home [pp. 370 – 377]
Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers [pp. 378 – 388]
Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block [pp. 389 – 401]
Some Rhetorical Lessons from John Henry Newman [pp. 402 – 412]
Rhetoric Rediviva [pp. 413 – 419]
Regaining Our Composure [pp. 420 – 426]
Aristotelian and Rogerian Rhetoric [pp. 427 – 432]
Reviews
untitled [pp. 433 – 437]
untitled [pp. 437 – 439]
untitled [pp. 439 – 440]
Back Matter