Revising

Sommer's article provoked a strong reaction in me - I found myself thoroughly irritated with her attempts to strategize and generalize the revision process.

The reason there is no research on the revision process is that it's not something that can be defined or structured. It's an extremely personal process and for me, at least, it differs every time. Sometimes I revise while I'm in the shower, sometimes I spend hours on one sentence, sometimes I don't revise for several weeks and then come back to it. My revision process has never been consistent - that's because each piece is different and comes from a different place. Trying to categorize the revision process into categories.

She makes the point that students think of revising as rewording, which she claims is an incorrect point of view. This is a totally ridiculous assumption - for me, revising is 60 percent rewording. I can spend hours restructuring a sentence and altering the word choice to make it as poignant and effective as possible - if you tell me that's not revising, then what is it?

I don't think there is a place in this field for trying to define and suggest strategies for revising. Writing is art. There is no correct way to create art. It's instinctual, it's personal and it's based on personal taste. It irritates me that an intelligent researcher would suggest there is an incorrect, or at the very least, less effective method of revising.