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Revising:
Hit-List of Problems in First Drafts
The chapters Mechanics, Style and Logic
list examples of writing which needs help. Here are some other kinds of
waywardness common to first drafts, together with suggested revisions.
1. The You-Gotta-Be-Sincere Opening
Number
War and Peace is a great novel by Leo
Tolstoy. I am going to write about three things with regard to this
novel. The three things are: death, life, and love....
Paying compliments to Tolstoy's skill
prevents the writer from saying anything of substance. Here the writer
needs to pick a controllable subject and narrow his focus. Otherwise
he'll be writing this paper until he grows a long grey beard and looks
like Tolstoy.
2. The Ring-the-Doorbell-and-Run-Away
Paragraph
Frankenstein's monster is a
convenient metaphor for the questionable uses of science in our century.
(*) Recombinant DNA, test-tube babies, and genetic experiments such as
cloning make us wonder what would happen if any of these experiments got
out of hand. Communities in which such research has been carried out
have used the town meeting tradition to ask scientists to be more
responsible for their creations. (**)
The sentences here approach, but do not
develop, the writer's ideas.
* The writer needs to apply her metaphor
here. Why is Frankenstein's monster an appropriate analogy?
** Since the paragraph's subject is
unclear, the writer needs to knit this sentence to the first sentence,
filling in details of the debate between communities and research
institutions.
Here is a revised version:
Frankenstein's monster is, in some
ways, a convenient metaphor for the troublesome uses of science in this
century. Fashioned by a man from parts of other men, the monster gets
out of control when its creator fails to be responsible for it. For
modern scientists, such responsibility may extend both to their work and
to society.
Recombinant DNA, test-tube babies,
and genetic experiments such as cloning raise questions of
responsibility and control. In communities near research institutions,
citizens' groups have protested experiments whose side effects might
prove threatening. Protestors argue that research should be subject to
informed inquiry which balances regulation of outcome with support for
creative experimentation.
3. The
Let-Your-Fingers-Do-the-Talking Paragraph
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring gives
very useful observations on the misuses of pesticides when she says:
Indeed one of the most alarming aspects of the chemical pollution of
water is the fact that here--in river or lake or reservoir, or for that
matter in the glass of water served at your dinner table - are mingled
chemicals that no responsible chemist would think of combining in his
laboratory. (49)
Carson points out that "radioactive wastes" poured into our
rivers, combining with "comparatively innocuous chemicals,"
might produce harmful effects which are "not only unpredictable but
beyond control."
This is fine as note-taking, but it
won't do as an argument, since the writer has simply used Carson's words
to fill up a paragraph. Asking "what am I using this for?"
might help him move his paper forward. Condensing the quote would help
restore the balance between writer and authority.
Revised version:
Rachel Carson illustrates the deadly
consequences of using rivers as chemical dumps when she discusses the
effects of ionizing radiation. In our very drinking water, she say,
"are mingled chemicals that no responsible chemist would think of
combining in his laboratory." Such results come from the
combination of "radioactive wastes" with "comparatively
innocuous chemicals."
Clearly, when we neglect to think of
the whole environment as a system obedient to natural and not human law,
we make nature dangerous. Without a proper understanding of a chemical's
relation to the environment, we cannot see results which are "not
only unpredictable but beyond control" (Carson 49).
This revision still includes Carson's
quote, but balances it with the writer's observations, first about what
the evidence illustrates, and second, about what principles we can draw
from it.
4. The Snake-Eateth-His-Own-Tail
Ending
Here's the first paragraph of the paper:
Emily Dickinson's poems show how
involved she was with the drama of death. In writing the poems she plays
all the roles involved in this drama: mourner, dead person, and witness.
In some of the poems she even seems to become death himself. The
posthumous voice was an experiment with a drama where the main actor was
offstage.
And here's the last paragraph, an echo
of the first:
Thus, as I have shown, Emily
Dickinson was not so much preoccupied with death as she was with the
drama of death. Such a drama allowed her to play all the roles: the
mourner, the dying person, and the witness. Though the main character
was offstage, she allowed death to make his presence deeply felt.
The writer has already discussed this
idea and is merely repeating herself. In the last paragraph she needs to
push her idea beyond its safe limits, to be provocative and to raise
questions she has not already answered.
Revised version:
What did it mean for Dickinson to
write "posthumous" poems? Did they make her feel deadly and
morbid, or did they give her a new authority? We have seen how dramatic
are her death-poems, how intensely they envision what a living person
can only imagine. Perhaps this intensity comes from Dickinson's desire
to control the uncontrollable while she still could. The sources of
Dickinson's power came, however, not simply from her control but from
her recognition of a mystery no language could translate from beyond the
grave.
5. The Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Finale
Thus the role of the investigative
journalism during the Watergate crisis was nothing less than heroic. Had
it not been for the brave men who questioned authority, including the
authority of their own editors, the infamy might have gone undetected.
What these men stood for, and helped preserve, was nothing less than
truth, justice, and the American way.
The adjectives are super-adjectives
attached to super-nouns. This inflated writing makes a blaring effect,
too noisy and windy to sustain ideas. The only thing to do with this is
to scrap it and start over.
Planning for Rewrites
Hit-List of Problems in First Drafts
Principles of Revision
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