digital content strategy, social media marketing, and seo expertise
A few days ago, I wrote a post about revisions that I was doing.
Tonight I’m reading How Writing Works: Imposing Organizational Structure within the Writing Process, by Gloria Houston, and she says, “This text has undergone more than eighty revisions to reach the state in which you are reading it” (38). Eighty. 80!!
Let me just say, I feel better now about the number of times I twist things around, or to use Houston’s term, the number of times I “refine” my writing. Houston advocates using the word refine over using the word revise because to most writers, revise just means to change while refine means to “create a more finely tuned product” (37). This distinction, I think, is an important one.
Houston also advocates a global perspective towards teaching writing. But, more on that later.
2 Responses to “To Refine, a/k/a Revision”
Leave a reply
About m2h blogsMarcia Hansen works by day as a marketing manager in social media. At other times you'll find her traveling about speaking, writing, and learning. And, if she's lucky, it's on her Honda Shadow 1100.
Please note -- the postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent my employer's positions, strategies, or opinions. If you want to know more about me, you can visit my About Marcia Hansen page above, or my home page at MarciaHansen.com.
Georganna Hancock
June 15th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
Wonder if this revise/edit/rewrite phenomenon is a more a personal writing style issue? I find revising a piece of writing to be a lot like revising a watercolor painting — more than a touch and I “make mud”. It’s true you can always edit a piece some more, but a point of diminishing returns comes sooner or later.
I’m thinking about this issue as I prepare to teach about writing for the first time. I know it’s one of those questions beginners always ask, and I’m struggling to find a beneficial response.
Marcia
June 16th, 2005 at 10:00 am
For some reason the structure on this paper that I’m working on has really had me going and I haven’t been able to be satisfied with how I lay it out my argument, so some of my revisions have been really major and others have been more simple editing. I imagined the 80 count I quoted above is probably something along those lines.
There does come a point where you just have to say enough. I don’t know what I’m going to tell my students either (I’m new too).
I don’t know how to describe that feeling. Well, other than to say, when you run out of time and smack into the deadline, then it’s time to stop revising or refining, or whatever!!