When revising, I have to be the worst. Not to be hard on myself but a lot of the time when I am working on a task, and I get lost, there is a slim chance that I can get myself back on track. Similarly to the conversation last week about shitty first drafts, Carol Berkenkotter in her work “Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer”, talks about how to look at it from a different perspective. One with more professional experience. Enter Donald M. Murray.
In this study, Berkenkotters goal is to understand how professional writers process information, compose it, and complete tasks they confront. Along with how, when being faced with certain tasks and scenarios, they could also be usefully analyzed to determine how understanding a writer’s process would help other research on their facts. Unfortunately, writers can not report all of their cognitive activity because they can not compose their work and monitor their process simultaneously. In order to complete this he asks Murray when they meet at a conference and, when asked if he’d be interested in being studied, Murray hesitated. Just a second later he turned out to be interested in seeing how his own mind works while writing. Win-win for everyone.
What Berkenkotter had in mind was to follow the think-aloud protocol other researchers were using with children previously. There were no other reports of a study based around using a writer’s un-natural setting and the think-long protocol, so this one is going to be one for the books. Now, there were three stages to Berkenkotter’s plan with Muray. Stage one: have Murray start recording his entire day starting when he gets to his desired natural setting. This stage is different from other research already as there is no time limit on thinking aloud and consistently; he’s essentially just going through his day as if he was on MTV cribs.
Stage two Berkenkotter caught Murray at his university and gave him a writing task that involved a specific audience, a subject and a purpose. He had one hour to do it, and he must use the think-aloud protocol. This was similar to a regular research example, as it is what they used to do with kids and their assignments. If I was ever given this assignment, I would’ve cried on the spot and wouldn’t have moved a muscle. It’s just so intimidating–but I’ll get into why later.
Stage three was a little more stalkerish in my opinion. Berkenkotter went to his house and observed him for two days while Murray performed the think-aloud protocol. While doing so, Murray was completing another task where he was revising a journal article. This one was at home so it was a little more in his natural setting, but still, look at me and tell me that’s not a little strange.
Some things were found out with this study, and it’s a little different from what was expected. It definitely threw Berkenkotter for a loop. Murray ran into a few problems while completing these tasks Berkenkotter was giving him, and according to her, there are two terms to describe Murray. Extensive and Flexible. He flip flopped between conveying messages and using an impersonal style, and using his feelings to write with a more personal one.
When he was familiar with the topic he was working with, Murray was like water over stone. He could think of things to write in no time flat and had absolutely no problem with it at all. However, when faced with something unfamiliar, it went a little differently. He became insecure, in a way. Murray would ask his wife, who was a professional typist and partner with his work, and if that didn’t satisfy him he would go back to his book and start all over again.
The other problem, memory. Murray was busy working on three tasks at once, along with living his regular life and his university, so if there was a moment where he was away from a task for too long with the study, he’d lose all of the information. Or at least a lot of his original train of thought.
Here is why I believe this whole thinking-aloud protocol is so intimidating. If I’m distracted while writing, I’ve already lost half the battle. That combined with someone watching me and following me around just to hear my non-existent train of thought = bad. Terrible, actually. I can listen to music while writing or watch Youtube, but make me speak? Cut it there.
The summary of Berkenkotter’s research is essentially this: the concern of time limitations. Murray was faced with a new monster in his life that he was interested in at first. While in the process of his unfamiliar writing process, he found himself going back and forth with his planning, drafting, editing, and reviewing. This happened with both articles he was working on and the editing for the journal, as he often found himself discarding his drafts on the time crunch.
So, all in all, it really just revolves around who is familiar or unfamiliar with a topic. There can be an amazing author who has published so many things, but they only know so much. They only work with so much. Challenges are great and all, but placing them in new conditions can do worse than stump them a little bit.
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