We've Lost Our Revision

I can understand how students would find the idea of rewriting a work to be foreign sounding. I would have to admit that I find it hard to really comprehend myself. I have never had to completely rewrite a work from beginning to end. The computer has taken away this particular hardship. In some regards I think that it is a benefit, but I can also see it as a downfall as well.

The computer has made writing a less intimidating practice. Students have more freedom when it comes to typing on a computer, or I guess I should say word processing. Students have the ability to make instant changes to their work.
We have seen the images of people hunched over a keyboard trying to “bang” out a paper quickly. The keys stick. The paper jams. The smallest mistake may require the retying of an entire page. No thank you. I would much rather have the freedom that a computer offers. Sitting comfortably over a keyboard. Constantly hitting the caps lock by mistake. Printing on a printer that never jams, or runs out of ink, or just looks at me and laughs. The only time that I have to retype is when I forget to save, or the computer shuts off, or when a hard drive crashes – which hardly ever happens. The only real difference, it seems, is that with a computer you have the freedom to make large changes to a work with very little effort. I am not sure whether this is good or bad. It allows students to move a paragraph from one location to another with just the click of a mouse. They can alter their organization with ease. There is something to be said about struggling though. If we make the writing process too easy for students, then I think that their writing is bound to suffer. While I can’t imagine myself rewriting a text 7 times, I have to wonder about what would happen if I did. What would I find in my writing if I decided to reexamine everything that I wrote 7 times?

By removing the rigor of revision, we have seemingly removed its importance as well. Students rely on their spellchecking software in order to catch all of their mistakes, and not on their own close reading of their text. The type and type until they reach the expected number of pages, and then they spell check, save, print, and turn it in, often without rereading it. By taking away the need for students to retype, we have taken away their need to read their work. They have lost all understanding of revision as anything more than a cursory glance at spelling and punctuation, if they even do that.

While I cheer for the invention of the word processor, I also lament the age of revisions that has seemingly passed us by. Students may be less intimidated to sit down and type now, but is their quality of work really worth the lack of trepidation? I just don’t know.

End note – This is draft number one of this entry.