Revision occurs all around us in the world, yet do we really understand it in texts? As you’ll recall, revision can be divided into two main subcategories: local and global.
Local Revision
Local revision deals with surfaces and appearances. In the world, an example of local revision would be painting a room of your house. The room is essentially the same: the same walls, function, space and flooring, but the surface of the walls has been changed. Another example can be seen in graffiti. Graffiti revises the surface it is affixed to, whether train car or wall. Cleaning up or painting over graffiti is another local revision.
In composing texts, we also deal with surfaces. Change a word in an alphabetic text, and you’ve changed the surface appearance: Suzy ran to the store. Suzy sprinted to the store. The same action is taking place, but the verb “sprinted” clarifies the running action. Sprinting connotes more urgency than just running. How would jogging change the same sentence? These are word-level issues we can choose to pay attention to in our writing.
Here are some things to keep in mind for local revision:
- Read the text aloud or have someone read it to you! You process information differently when you read to yourself and when you read aloud. You will often “hear” errors through stumbles in speaking. Reading silently is more like writing, and your brain will often not “see” errors just like when you composed them.
- Polish the surface of the text you are working on
- Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation
- Usage: Are you using the right word for the right circumstance?
- Paragraph Unity: is your paragraph a coherent structure? Does it have random sentences that should not be there?
- Transitions: between paragraphs and between points within paragraphs
- Is your paper properly formatted? Font, spacing, page numbers, heading, citations, works cited, etc.
- Thesis Statement
- Topic Sentences
- Introduction/Conclusion
- Fulfill PURPOSE of assignment
Global Revision
If local revision deals with surface, then Global Revision concerns substance. To reuse the previous metaphor: now we are remodeling the entire house, rather than painting a room. We knock down walls, put in new toilets and granite countertops, etc. You are literally making what you had new and, hopefully, better than it was before. We will talk about several strategies and examples.
Addition
This revision strategy literally means what you think. You have a base text, and you improve it by adding more information and expanding.
Example: The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever”
Think about peer reviews and teacher comments where it seems like your reader needed or wanted more information. Pay attention to moments in the text where you were tired, like the end paragraphs or conclusion. The conclusion is an especially rich place to locate possible additions because the text, for you at that point, is essentially finished, and the pressure of making the text is lifted in favor of closing up points and restating ideas. This is often where what you really want to write about emerges. Keep this in mind for later.
Subtraction
The opposite of addition. Keep what you need and cut out what doesn’t make sense or is irrelevant.
Example: Neil Young’s “Like A Hurricane”
Pay close attention to paragraphs or sentences that do not relate to the topic at hand and either cut them or rewrite them to make them fit.
Transposition
Changing the order of things to suit your needs better.
Example: The Beatles, “Strawberry Fields Forever” (lyrics)
Transposition will be especially important for you if you feel like you make a mess first and clean it up later. If you are truly freewriting and not editing yourself as the words come out, you often give up the ordering, controlling part of your brain in order to get things on paper. In American writing, we prize a linear order in writing and public speaking (Write what you are going to write about, write about it, write what you just wrote about), but not everyone’s mind works that way on first composition and in fact, other cultures’ writing is much different, circling a point or going into narratives, tangents and explanations before getting to the point. Many of you will find your work has most of the main points you need, but they might not be in the right order.
Synthesis and Remix
Blending together texts to make a new document.
Example: Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
When synthesizing or remixing texts, you are combining two or more texts to create a new document. An example of this is creating a custom playlist in iTunes or another music program. You are pulling music out of its original context and placing it alongside other songs it was not necessarily written to be heard with. Girl Talk does this, but his remixes interweave other artists songs to make something new and totally different from the original. This is one of the goals of researched academic writing, to use the research and inquiry of other scholars who come before us and to synthesize their quotations and ideas with our argument.
Translation
This is not what you think—writing in another language. In composition, we can translate our texts by changing rhetorical situations. An easy example of translation, in the sense I’m using it, is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. All of these have been translated into movies. People usually fight over which version they like better, but the truth is each genre has its own conventions that need to be looked at on their own terms. For example, the book provides more space for vivid description through writing, while the movie is often forced to condense a paragraph or even a chapter to a few minutes, whereas we might take an hour to read it.
Example: Buffalo Springfield “For What It’s Worth”/Public Enemy “He Got Game”
In this class we have worked in several modes, genres and forums, and sometimes what we composed could be better composed in a new genre. For example, a paper might be better as a series of visuals or vice versa. The best practical way to translate what you’ve done is to rewrite an existing text in a new way by changing the rhetorical situation, especially the ones listed above. When you translate, there are always things that are untranslatable, which is why there is no English word for schadenfreude and why we have the expression lost in translation.
Reinvention
Sometimes when you re-approach an older text, you have changed or your beliefs about your text have changed to the point where you disagree with what you’ve done. Maybe small parts or fragments still ring true for you, but you mostly need to rewrite the entire thing.
Example: Led Zeppelin “The Ocean”/ Beastie Boys “She’s Crafty”
As intimidating as it sounds, this is the revision strategy I use most often. For me, the impulse to create a certain text in a certain way does not remain over a long period of time. I change, learn more, and my skills as a thinker and writer improve, and I suddenly need a new text based on the old, ineffectual text.
Sometimes glimmers of what you really want to write show up in a text you are not satisfied with, and you can reinvent the old text, making something completely different and new. Freewriting while holding the old text in mind can be an effective strategy to begin reinvention.
As with the example, reinvented texts often begin with someone’s else thought or something you learn or run across that catches you attention. Train yourself to be aware of those inspiring moments because they can lead to texts that satisfy you personally, which many people say is when they like writing best.
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Composition as Critical Inquiry 