“Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking?” By Sandra L. Giles

“So I went and took notes. And wrote two consecutive drafts. After peer workshop, a third. And then I had to write the process note, the likes of which I had never done before. It felt awkward, senseless. Worse than writing a scholarship application or some other mundane writing task. Like a waste of time, and like it wasn’t real writing at all. But it was required.” This quote was interesting because the author explained how early in her life she had to use reflection and revise her paper, she found it annoying but ultimately knew that it was the best option for writing.

“Reflection helps you to develop your intentions (purpose), figure out your relation to your audience, uncover possible problems with your individual writing processes, set goals for revision, make decisions about language and style, and the list goes on. In a nutshell, it helps you develop more insight into and control over composing and revising processes. And according to scholars such as Chris M. Anson, developing this control is a feature that distinguishes stronger from weaker writers and active from passive learners.” This quote sheds light on a new side of reflection and revision that I will use in the future.

What I found interesting was that she sees herself as a writer before an instructor, in the text the author explains “Writing teachers often play two roles in relation to their students. I am my students’ instructor, but I am also a fellow writer. As a writer, I have learned that revision can be overwhelming. It’s tempting just to fiddle with words and commas if I don’t know what else to do”. The quote brings up good points on revision, and I think the piece was very informative and shows a greater side on writing styles and reflection. 

“This student, having drafted the above letter, should go back and

analyze. Do the essay and letter match up? Does the essay do what

the letter promises? And here, does the letter uncover lack of clear

thinking about purpose and strategy? Yes, it does, so she should now

go back and address these issues in her essay. Without having done

this type of reflective exercise, she likely would have thought her essay was just fine, and she would have been unpleasantly surprised to get the grade back with my (the teacher’s) extensive commentary and critique.” The quote explains how the author is critiquing a student’s work to show how the revision process can help your writing. Reflection is a technique that can help your writing. This article talks about reflections and shows examples of them in people’s writing, the tips and techniques that the author discussed can be implemented by us to write the final reflection. Revision is also an important task to complete when writing any piece because mistakes can happen that can affect the overall structure of a written piece.