The closest metaphor that Tomlinson describes to my revising process would be tying things off. I’ve never been much for revising. When we started this class and you said a few small changes won’t cut it for revision my heart sank a little. I typically restructure while writing, but we’ve mentioned that writing is not a linear process. So I revise while drafting. The other metaphor would be the ore metaphor. I do the revision sentence by sentence, because fundamentally changing the entire work after it is written seems like a huge waste to me. I’d like to get more into the painting analogy to build on what I have. I find it tough to add to an essay once I’ve written it. In reference to Wikipedia’s revision process we can learn more from what is “fixed” in any article than we can just editing our own work. When you view history on a Wikipedia article we can see revisions and edits from 10’s to 1000’s of writers. The scrutiny that each article faces in one day is way greater than what most publications face in a year, especially for popular articles like Christmas which has been edited to some degree over 2500 times in the last 7 years. Since my article went up last Wednesday it’s been edited by three people and two “bot” programs. (but it’s still up) The ability to completely delete articles raises questions about how powerful the revising process. On Wikipedia another person can look at an authors work and decide that the entire article just isn’t important or written correctly. That’s a little extreme in my mind.
i am about the same way when i revise my writing. i like revise as i go so that i am done with the piece when i finish the last sentence. i have never been really good at revising my own work although i can edit other people's work easily. i didnt think to look at the edit list on the page that i created but after reading your post i looked and saw that mine was also edited since i put it up which is pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteYou do a very good job of tying(pun?) the metaphor to your own writing style. I use a completely different writing style where draft without revision and then go back and edit, but I was able to understand your unique writing process better from the metaphor.
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you in regards to your righting process. I am perpetually revising and editing as i continue to write and produce. My article has also been played with a bit since i posted it; too cool. I love the idea that articles on wikipedia (including our own) can/will be edited for years to come as more information and history develops on the subject.
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