Revising is a practice all good writers implement and are intimately familiar with. I can attest to my familiarity with the revising part of writing since I have a tendency to revise as I write, as I have mentioned in my previous article. Sometimes I do feel bad about the constant backtracking and revising I do whilst writing. This tendency of mine results in the writing process being lengthened which can be quite delaying.
From Carol Berkenkotter’s study of Donald Murray we learn that the writing process can be separated into four steps: planning, evaluating, revising, and editing. According to her observation Murray dedicated most of his time to planning and the least to revising. However, Berkenkotter and her coder discovered that planning and revising were actually highly intertwined. She noticed that the writer would do an activity that combined planning and revising that is known as reconceiving. She also noticed that the writer would constantly switch between other parts of the writing process. The switching would help him re-evaluate his work with fresher eyes which could help him find anything missing in his text. Berkenkotter also informs of the importance of the role of “incubation” in the writing process, which means that once discoveries are made the writer will think over those discoveries and dictate whether or not they’ll help them accomplish their rhetorical goals. Finally she informs us of the role of “introspection” in which means that the writer ruminates on them and will edit the text if they see fit too.
Throughout this study has it made abundantly clear that the activity of revising is a constant in the writing process.
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