Anne Lamott wrote a very interesting text about first draft, though I am very concerned about her well-being considering how many times she mentions suicide or her dying. What I enjoyed this text is that it is very personable, she uses almost inappropriate language to get her point across, which makes the reader feel like they are having a normal conversation rather than reading a scholarly text. The idea of writing everything out, however your mind understands and then going to fix it later is a common practice used by many people. I myself have done this before and usually do it when I’m writing. I typically write a rough draft and then go onto structure my paper the way it needs to be later on. getting your ideas out of your mind in order to properly create the writing can be an effective way to style your writing.
On the contrast to Anne Lamott, George Dila wrote a short and simple text about how writing first drafts can be useless and harmful to your writing. His comparison to building a house as an electrician is very interesting to me because I have never thought about it that way. He makes a point that is important to know the foundations of your writing and not just go in blind. Say a builder is building a house and decides that he will fix his problems later. His house will probably not be that structured or well built. This goes for your writing as well, revising is important however, writing a shitty first draft may be useless. While George Dila makes some very good points, I do agree with Lamott because that is how I’ve been taught to write and what I am used to. I think properly written drafts can be beneficial to your outcome.
Nancy Sommer’s article was very insightful. Student writers aren’t used to proper revision because they are still used to being taught that reviewing means rewriting. When in fact, reviewing is thinking about the content and responding appropriately and making decisions to properly restructure the writing. I personally had a hard time understanding Sommers point, but the different definitions of reviewing, redoing, marking out, splashing and throwing helped me have a better understanding of the differences between revision and strategies amongst student writers and experienced writers. Similar to the shitty draft, everyone’s writing style and revision will be different. Especially when looking at younger students compared to experienced adult writers.
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