Blog #8 Response

Berkenkotter and Murray - "Decisions and Revisions"

I. Summary
In her article, "Decisions and Revisions," Berkenkotter attempts to explain her naturalistic research on Donald Murray. She shows his ways of planning, revising, and editing his work as he spoke into a recorder while writing. This research was broken into three stages over a 62 day period, and was conducted in 1981.

II. Conversation
This article has similar aspects as Kleine and Kantz's articles. Kleine also took a hands on approach to research. Kleine had personal interactions while conducting his reseach, as well as Berkenkotter during the third stage of the research (when she visited Murray at his for two days). Kantz pointed out that the Encoder is always thinking about how the Decoder will interpret the topic (text). This same idea is shown on the bottom of page 225, when Murray is contemplating whether his language is too complex for the audience to understand, he says that he must remember that the "job [is] not to explore the complexities of revision, but simply to show the reader how to do revision."

III. Assigned Exercise
QDJ1: How was your impression of Murray's writing processes as they're described here? How do they compare to yours? What do you do the same or different?
A: Murray's writing process seems very like a very long and thought out process. Two out of the three times data was collected, the planning process took the longest. This information does not surprise me because I also spend a lot of time planning my writing. The fact that revision was the lowest every time was pretty shocking though (3%, 3% and 0%) because I feel like I spend more than 3% of my time revising. Murray himself even said it was quite a surprise.

QDJ3: Murray's relationship with his audience seems complicated. Try to describe it, and then compare it to your own sense of audience: How much are you thinking about your audience while writing?
A: Murray is constantly making sure his audience will be able to follow his writing. At times he writes with too advanced and complicated vocabulary. On page 225 he said in the recording, "... I realized that in a sense I was making this too complicated for myself and simply what I have to do show show reader..." I need to think about how my audience will actually take in the message, not so much about how they'll judge my writing (which is what I usually worry about).

AE2: Less-experienced writers...
A: I characterize my level of writing to be higher, but there is PLENTY of room for improvement! I have been writing for a long time, have taken several classes specifically geared toward writing, and have always enjoyed it. I spend most of my time in the planning process (probably even a little too much time there). I think I could improve my writing skills and level by focusing more on revision and editing, and I'm sure many of my peers can agree that at times those are the most time consuming but are very essential.

MM: Name one thing you learned...
The one thing I found most helpful was when Murray was trying to figure out a good way to connect with the audience. I need to start thinking about how they'll view my piece of writing and if the message I am trying to get across is clear.

IV: Personal Reflection
This article proved that even as a well accomplished a scholarly writer, the writing process still takes time and commitment is essential. Also, Berkenkotter pointed out that Murray has his wife (a scholarly writer) check over every piece of his writing. This idea emphasizes the same thing Allen was telling readers: have a well established person (who knows the info) review your work before making it final.