January 25 Carol Berkenkotter

Summary:
In Decisions and Revisions, Carol Berkenkotter studies Donald Murray over a period of 62 days to better understand and pay attention to " the setting in which the writer composes the kind of task the writer confronts, and what the writer can tell us of his own process"(Page 218).  Carol does just this through giving different examples and explaining what Dawkins does on a daily basis during his writing, revising and editing process.

1 Murray' writing process was very complicated.  I think any thoughts about writers having sudden inspiration was really proved wrong in this study because Murray's puts so much thought and effort into his writing, especially the planning process. It is interesting that Murray writes in a daybook and journal all day.  Murray is much more organized that I am in his process but that is also because I don't write as an occupation.  I think that I plan a lot but i do not spend the time i should editing and revising

2 I am confused myself with his relationship with the audience. He states in paragraph 19 that a second kind of planning activity was the stating of rhetorical goals... planning how to reach an audience. He takes responses from colleges and summarizes them  and puts it into his first draft. He revises and goes over their responces numerous times.  I do not think that i put this much effort into what my audience thinks.

3. She realized that the planning and revising process are linked together and basically the same thing because you re-conceive meaning you are always planning and revising.

AE

1. I spend my time writing in various increments, my writing experience consists of writing papers for english classes including research, poems, and all the types of high school requirements. my writing experience doesn't give me time to really go through the writing process thoroughly.

Meta Moment

I learned that i should make numerous drafts and sometimes start over to get the important things across my mind. this will help me stay more organized so that all my thoughts dont just go into one document. Also, keeping a notebook with all my thoughts about a paper so that i am not trying to write all at once