What Is Nancy Sommers Revision Strategies Of Student Writers Summary
Dear Jolie,
I am writing to you to discuss an article I recently had read, “Revision Strategies of Student Writers,” by Nancy Sommers. Sommers touches on the issue that students tend to stress emphasis on articulate wording and linear writing. She explains the multiple definitions students use to describe “revision;” they all point out that revision means to make word changes to their draft without developing their main claim. She insists that students don’t have the necessary freedom to write how they think will firmly prove the argument they want to prove. Instead, they are systematically forced to make their writings follow a linear model that teachers teach to use in classrooms. In turn, as long as they have an introduction, body, and conclusion, …show more content…
I think that in order to correctly revise a paper, writers need to challenge and confront their ideas with a motive to improve and develop their objective into a solid composition. However, as I say this, I am a student that “revises” exactly as Sommers outlines. She asserts that to revise, students often demonstrate a “thesaurus philosophy of writing,” meaning “[the students] believe that most problems in their essays can be solved by rewording” (1). I think it’s true how students simply revise on the bases of “just using better words and eliminating words that are not needed,” thus attending to the “immediate problems, but blind themselves to problems on a textual level” (2). I completely agree and believe that I also don’t focus on changing and switching ideas and instead, work on making my papers sound as fancy as possible. As Sommers puts it, “What [students] lack, however, is a set of strategies to help them identify the "something larger" (2). I think that we know when something is wrong with the text or delivery of our essays, but don’t know how to properly expand it. I think in order to achieve the desirable state of an argument, the revision process must be constant and never-ending. Obviously one might need to end their revision to complete their final product, but in theory, there will always be something to fix on a
I am writing to you to discuss an article I recently had read, “Revision Strategies of Student Writers,” by Nancy Sommers. Sommers touches on the issue that students tend to stress emphasis on articulate wording and linear writing. She explains the multiple definitions students use to describe “revision;” they all point out that revision means to make word changes to their draft without developing their main claim. She insists that students don’t have the necessary freedom to write how they think will firmly prove the argument they want to prove. Instead, they are systematically forced to make their writings follow a linear model that teachers teach to use in classrooms. In turn, as long as they have an introduction, body, and conclusion, …show more content…
I think that in order to correctly revise a paper, writers need to challenge and confront their ideas with a motive to improve and develop their objective into a solid composition. However, as I say this, I am a student that “revises” exactly as Sommers outlines. She asserts that to revise, students often demonstrate a “thesaurus philosophy of writing,” meaning “[the students] believe that most problems in their essays can be solved by rewording” (1). I think it’s true how students simply revise on the bases of “just using better words and eliminating words that are not needed,” thus attending to the “immediate problems, but blind themselves to problems on a textual level” (2). I completely agree and believe that I also don’t focus on changing and switching ideas and instead, work on making my papers sound as fancy as possible. As Sommers puts it, “What [students] lack, however, is a set of strategies to help them identify the "something larger" (2). I think that we know when something is wrong with the text or delivery of our essays, but don’t know how to properly expand it. I think in order to achieve the desirable state of an argument, the revision process must be constant and never-ending. Obviously one might need to end their revision to complete their final product, but in theory, there will always be something to fix on a