How Writers Use Revision to Further Impact Their Writing

“Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.”

Patricia Reilly Giff

Think back on a time when your instructor had given you a paper back asking you to revise it. Often, when we hear the term “revise”, we often students associate it with a bad press. It’s often like you hear, “Hey, you did good, but not good enough to get the grade you want.” So when students hear about revision, it’s almost like a kryptonite to them. Yet, revision is so much more than that. With revision, it allows yourself a chance to be able to change and switch things to better match what you’re trying to say. No one is perfect, and therefore no piece is perfect; there is always room to improvement.

Writing is an Expression

As Bazerman and Tinberg pointed out, writing is a full engagement interacting with the deepest parts of our brain and nervous system. Often when writers are up late at night (such as myself) trying to type out a paper or write an essay, we cultivate so many thoughts on how the paper is going to come out and how to present out work towards the audience. Creative writers struggle with this heavy as with creative writing, the three main aspects that comes with appeal is the demographics, the message, and the delivery on how your words come out.

Failure in the Course of Writing

In the book, “Bird by Bird”, by Anne Lamott, she introduces the concept of “shitty first drafts”, which may get a chuckle out of someone when looking at the phrasing of the title, however it draws upon a important concept. Many writers (especially phenomenal ones) often fail more than they succeed. Similarly how you see an iceberg at the top with a small hill, while deep below it lies a pillar which almost triples in size. That’s how the measurement of success is laid out. Writers can refer to “Writing For success” in order to better assist with being able to help out with their writing.

From my experiences writing and revision, I have benefitted from being able to rewrite and make notes on the things I messed up on. This is important in establishing as it allows me to make mental notes on what I am writing and keep a steady pace in not allowing myself to make anymore mistakes along with it.