Response to Making Meaning Clear: The Logic of Revision by Donald M. Murray (revision article)

“Revision is not just clarifying meaning, it is discovering meaning and clarifying it while it is being discovered. ...Revision is not a matter of correctness, following the directions in a manual. The writer has to go back again and again to reconsider what the writing means and if the writer can accept, document, and communicate that meaning” (33).

I tell the students that I work one-on-one with in the writing center at City College’s Center for Worker Education that the real writing doesn’t begin until it is time to edit and revise. Initially, the student has to have a complete regurgitation of the information that he has read, discussed, and researched without thought to form or order. I believe this process will not only call to mind what the student has remembered but what he has discovered about what he has remembered as well. This is the first draft. I find that when students read the assignment and work towards what instructor is looking for first, they do not realize how much they have understood. Their papers use most of the author’s words than the students because the students don’t trust what they are saying. Another reason for the initial complete writing “dump”, as I like to refer to it, is so when it is read back the student can see ideas or concepts they have picked up in their reading. When discussing text, sometimes a student doesn’t know what he knows until it is written down. The process of writing encourages thinking.

Only when this is done can the revising and the discovering of meaning happen. This is when student’s writing becomes detailed. The revision process is when the student gets to clarify what he sees and what it means in context. They can pick and choose concepts or themes to expand on from their drafts because the draft will have all the substance to pull from. But meaning can change with each revision, as the student recalls and internalizes the information. I believe the student is more invested during revision to make their argument or essay understood.

Revision isn’t just a clarification of the writer’s point of view, it is a sharpened focus and as instructors we act as tour guides on their papers, asking them to show us more or tell us more.