Mar 29, 2023
I’ll be the first to admit that revising and editing is not my cup of tea. Imagine having to write a ten-page paper that requires you to collect data from different sources. By the time you’re finished, your brain is burnt out, you are extremely exhausted. All you want to do is submit that assignment and breathe a sigh of relief that you don’t have spent another minute looking at that assignment. Nevertheless, there are benefits for everyone involved (the writers, and the readers) in revising and editing. In her article, Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Published Writer, Carol Burkenkotter talks about Donald Murray, and how he was able to find questions and answers by revisiting his writing. Information that he had missed during his initial draft. Donald states that “Having listened to the tapes I was aware that editing (i.e., reading the text aloud and making word-and-sentence-level changes) sometimes led to major planning episodes, and I wanted to keep track of the sequence.”
The Benefits of Revising and Editing
Using the same example I mentioned above, it can also be a disadvantage to not revise an assignment. Let’s face it, when you have a deadline a front of you to complete such a lengthy assignment, your focus is mostly on gathering general information. Therefore, unless you revisit the assignment to edit it, it is almost a guarantee that will be some open gaps left unfilled.
Even though the process of writing and editing each paragraph might seem a bit tedious, the benefits that are gained from it are rewarding. I can understand the frustration of anyone who finds the process less exciting because I had a similar experience. When I was placed in a School Readiness Assessment (SRA) class in high school to write essays in order to make up for the state test that I had failed the first time, my English teacher was adamant that each student will not move on to write the first body paragraph until the introduction was perfect. So the best way for that to happen was for each student to show her the paragraph, and she will tell you what to edit. The great thing about it was that once I have the approval on a paragraph, it gave me comfort that I can proceed to the next paragraph with the knowledge that I don’t have to go back to it again. Going through the process of revisiting, editing, and fixing your writing is indeed exhausting, however, the benefits outweigh the risks of skipping it.
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