A Purposefully Provocative Revision

I write to help. I also write to make people think. Most of the time, with a  a purposefully provocative slant. Yesterday, what others wrote in response made me think.  

I want to contribute to the field, but I don't want to confuse anyone either. So, please consider the <<revisions>> to see if I can take a stab at clarifying my own thinking and finding a way to make this post about more than semantics - what we call what we do when we write. The argument is that the language we use doesn't matter in practice. But as a fan of Vygostsky - "Language gives access to thought." - there are some important things the language we use about writing can refine for our instruction. 

Lipstick on a Dirty Pig: Editing and Proofreading are not the same cognitive activity.

Editing is not the same thing as proofreading. But I think that when teachers say to edit your paper, we really are telling them to proofread. There’s a big difference.

Editing happens when someone else looks at the piece. <<When I was reading in ACTS of Teaching, this is what Joyce was explaining. I read more deeply and realized that context was an important distinction here. She was talking about the world of publication and printing. The language used here references processes used in a business, not a classroom. Certainly, Writers can edit their pieces as part of the writing process. Professional Editors, well, editing is the multiple meaning word we use to describe the activity they do in their job. It's not a part of the Writer's internal writing process at that point. It's an external mechanical activity imposed on the text by someone other than the Writer. The Writer then must re-enter the text to cognitively process how the marks made by the editor need to be treated. That's why the Editor sends the writing back to the Writer. The Writer must make the final decision about the changes. Otherwise, the piece would go right to print from the Editor. As a Writer, I don't want other people making those decisions for me. They might mess it up.>> Proofreading happens when the writer looks at the piece for polishing. <<This happens in the publishing world too. A proofreader takes one more look at the print ready copy to see if there are any obvious goofs that need attention. Classroom Writers need to do this too. Mrs. McFarland always told us to get out a pencil before turning in our typed papers. "Once more, read over your paper, this time looking for typos." >> Editing is about considering the Writing Quintet: organization, focus, clarity, coherence, and meaning. Spelling, grammar, punctuation are secondary tools (among others) that writers use to accomplish the Writing Quintet. The disconnect comes when we make spelling, grammar, and punctuation the goal instead of communication. <<I think I still mean this. When Writers edit for for CUPS, the whole point of that is to make sure that the CUPS don't get in the way of the Reader's transaction with the text. CUPS are there to serve the quintet, not to mindlessly follow some helpful rule.>> Remember, these mechanical features of our language were invented by scribes to help the reader understand the written message. They were invented AFTER things were written and are only useful when you have something important to say. In other words, no one needs the rules until they put them with ideas. That’s why kids don’t remember the rules. There’s no point.

There are three kinds of editing: <<The context here is the Publishing World. Not the classroom context. Not the Writing Process. For the classroom, I see two uses for the concepts implied here.

1. Students get more feedback from their peers than any other source. Students - especially adolescents - care more about what their peers say than the adults who know better. Unfortunately, most of what students hear from their peers about writing is full of misconceptions, errors, and oversight (Hattie, 2008).

a. Can we as teachers help focus the work of collaborative groups and feedback by having peers serve as Editors that help Writers decide where they should revise. The Copy Editor's role is to read the paper and identify where the prosody or meaning or standard use interfere with meaning. The usually comes from a reading devoted to grammar and syntax. The Copy Editor's job is to notice the flaw. The Writer's job is to consider the suggestion and then revise accordingly. In practice, I see a student reading a paper aloud to the person who has written it. If he stumbles with prosody or something doesn't sound right, the Writer, highlights that on his paper. Then he discusses what he has highlighted with his writing group to consider grammar and syntax to determine the cause and a possible solution. Then, the Writer is poised to revise.

2. The distinctions between the jobs performed by the Copy Editor, The Hard Editor, and the Technical Editor help pinpoint specific areas of writing that need to be addressed. Novice Writers, heck - NO Writer ever - can do everything all at once. In classroom instruction, I see the teacher helping students focus on specific elements as they read their papers together. I hear a Writer reading his paper aloud to his feedback group. The first time he reads, the group just listens to understand and experience. As the Writer reads aloud the piece a second time, the feedback group listens as a thought partner that focuses on something specific for the writer - redundancies, gaps in logic, organizational flow, etc. The feedback group describes their noticings and meta-cognitive activities as they listened with the specific charge dictated by the role of a Copy Editor, Hard Editor, or Technical Editor. Then, the Writer goes about considering those discussions in how he will revise his work.>>

3. Three things. I lied. ARMS is another acronym we use to help kids revise. That tells kids some specific actions that they can complete. But does that really help a Writer decide what needs to be added and why? Considering the types of things that Editors can help Writers identify, I think the information below gives more clarity to what we are actually asking kids to do when we ask them to revise.>>

Copy Edits - another person looks at the paper to identify

• grammar
• syntax

Hard Edits - another person looks at the paper for

• redundancies
• gaps in logic
• places where more explanation is needed
• moving around paragraphs
• reworking or eliminating parts of the text

Technical Edits: another person looks at the paper for facts and flaws in

• Attribution
• incorrect data
• missing words
• incorrect information (Armstrong-Carroll, 2008, p. 159)

In the classroom, there are also three kinds of editing

• Teacher and student
• Teacher
• Student and student (Armstrong-Carroll, 2008, p. 159)

<<Most of us, when we talk about editing, really mean proofreading. I think it is a distinction worth noting. It certainly brings more focus to the kinds of activities and thinking that writers do. Proofreading is more about getting something ready to print. Typography. Making it pretty.  Proofreading is about these things:

• Capitals

• Commas

• Indenting

• Spacing

• Letters in the right order (AKA spelling)

• Headings

• Inserting missing words

• Correcting reversals

• And more

 

Perhaps kids don’t do well with proofreading because they haven’t done the hard work of editing and shaping their writing to match their goals as writers. When you proofread before you edit, you just have lipstick on a dirty pig.

<<How do I make the distinction? I thought that I would draw the line between revision and editing depending on where the writer was in the process. Nope. The line is drawn between the role of the Writer and the Editor. It is unfortunate that editor and editing are so similar. The distinction between editing and revising remain in terms of the cognitive activity of the Writer. I do think that proofreading needs to be added as a stage in editing. This has made me value - even more - the collaborative contributions of others as we grow and learn. We need those thought partners that can suggest both revisions and edits. They are the ones that help us see spots we missed on our dirty pig before we put on the lipstick and hit print.

Wonder what we can call them besides Editors? I'm fortunate to call mine "Friends." >>

Armstrong-Carroll, J., & Wilson, E. E. (2008). ACTS of teaching: How to Teach Writing. 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.