Response to "Decisions and Revisions..."

            In her article "Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer", Carol Berkenkotter attempts to find out and show readers how professional writers go about their writing process. She argues that most researches done on how writers formulate their works are lacking in technique and goes on to show how Donald Murray truly writes.

            This article is similar to the article “Ways of Seeing” in that Berkenkotter took Murray and showed him, from an outside perspective, his own processes of writing; she showed him a new way of seeing his own work.

            I thought this was an interesting article because it looked at how writers formulate their writing and it is really interesting to see what exactly goes through their head while they do it. Berkenkotter took it to the next level and recorded what Murray was doing even while not writing, making it really feel like your current work is an expression of what is happening around you not only when you’re writing it, but also when you’re taking breaks from writing.

Before You Read

            Do I have any writing rituals? When I sit down and write I really have to get myself to do it. I pack up all my things I need, especially my headphones, and head to the library. If I am in an environment with any kinds of distractions I will not be able to focus on my writing and won’t be able to do it to the best of my ability. I usually like to have some sort of drink with caffeine in it before I write whether it be a red bull or coffee. Most of the times I do not write anything before I start writing I just go with it and end up with a draft that I revise from there.

Questions for Discussion and Journaling

1.)

Murray’s writing processes seemed to me to be a lot different than mine, although I have never gone out of my way to study my own processes. Murray’s were that he would plan, incubate, ‘reconceive’ and then revise and edit. The only things I do similar to Murray are revise and edit at the end.

3.)

            This study changed Berkenkotter’s understanding of writing processes mainly in her understanding of planning and revision. She found out that Murray’s planning stage was a lot longer than most suspected. If he needed to revise he would first ‘reconceive’ which was a complete re-planning of sorts that was a lot different than she suspected his revision would be.

Applying and Exploring Ideas

1.)

            The time I spend writing is mainly focused on writing and revision. I will write a draft and go back through and revise until I am happy with what I wrote. My level of writing experience is not that great, I have never gotten seriously into writing, I only will write papers for school, and although I write poetry outside of class, that is much different, in my opinion, than writing papers. With more experience I think I would tend to do more planning before writing, as well as more revising after because I would want everything to live up to my higher, more experienced standards.

Meta Moment

            One thing I have learned from the Berkenkotter and Murray readings is that planning and revising are large factors in writing. I already revise my writings quite a bit but I think I could use more planning in them.