Writing & Revision

Write@UNG Series

Dr. Michael Rifenburg

Department of English

CTLL Faculty Fellow for Scholarly Writing

@jmrifenburg

core values

connecting

cultivating

creating

Reminders

positive

P&T focused

writer focused

External v Internal

Writers revise writing.

Writing needs revision.

Self-prompted or reviewer-prompted

but first...

you gotta get words on the screen.

"Revising while you generate text is like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning: noble idea, wrong time. Your first draft should sound like they were hastily translated from Icelandic by a nonnative speaker

. . .

Rejoice in writing your gnarled and impenetrable drafts, just as you rejoice in later stamping out your fuzzy phrases and unwanted words"

--Silva, How to Write A Lot

Internal revision

Who will read it?

What will they read for? Be specific.

Internal Revision

Content and Style

Hard copy

Quite place / blue pen / mark it up.

All paragraphs revolve around main point

My last paragraph really my main point?

Read to hate, read to scratch out

External revision

your work is going to be read anonymously. And critiqued heavily

How do you respond to reader's reports?

Reader's reports

resist the temptation to fire off an email. You're likely to become defensive, even before you can figure out what the reader is saying. Take at least 24 hours. But don't disappear--a month is too long.
take notes as you read the report
take the report seriously.
No matter what's in the report, don't get angry.

-Germano Getting it Published

A report

...

While revising

Track your changes.

I write them quickly on a separate word document.

After REVISING

Compose a detailed revision memo based on your document

Single-spaced, UNG letter-head.

Fully-justified.

Add your electronic signature.

Be specific.

Send with your revised ms.

My opening paragraph

Please find a zip folder attached to this email. Inside this folder, I have included the front matter and text to my revised manuscript The Literate Practices of Big-Time College Sports. I would like thank you and the two reviewers for the thoughtful and extensive comments. In keeping with these comments, I have made a number of significant revisions. Chapters 1-3, per Reviewer 1’s feedback, remain the same; I revised chapter 4; I completely rewrote chapter 5. The manuscript now runs roughly 63,000 words.

Revision Memo Example

Writing Groups

Wednesday, April 26