The Craft of Revision, Anniversary Edition

by Murray, Donald M.

• ISBN13: 9780840028853
• ISBN10: 0840028857
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780838407158
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-09
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald M. Murray's lively and inspiring approach to writing and revision does not condescend but invites you into the writer's studio. The ANNIVERSARY EDITION includes a new foreword by Brock Dethier, Writing Program Director at Utah State University and former University of New Hampshire colleague of the late Donald Murray. They met in 1978 and when Dethier later became an adjunct instructor at UNH, struggling to balance his teaching career with his dreams of getting published, Murray was a source of guidance and support. Dethier offers not only an introduction to the "man behind the book," but a retrospective of Murray's significant contributions to the Composition world and the ways in which THE CRAFT OF REVISION helps you to actually DO the writing--not just talk about it.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Preface	p. xxi
Rewrite Before Writing	p. 1
Why Do We Resist Rewriting?	p. 2
An Invitation: Write with Me	p. 5
How Do You Find Something to Write About?	p. 6
Brainstorming	p. 6
Interview Yourself	p. 9
Circle the Subject	p. 10
Try Out Lines	p. 11
Play with Images	p. 12
Make Connections	p. 13
What If	p. 14
Be Specific	p. 15
End-of-Chapter Interviews	p. 18
Interview with a Published Writer-Elizabeth Cooke	p. 18
How to Get the Writing Done: Tricks of the Writer's Trade	p. 24
Nulla Dies Sine Linea	p. 26
Establish Achievable Deadlines	p. 27
Break a Writing Assignment into Small Daily Tasks	p. 28
Know Tomorrow's Task Today	p. 28
Keep a Daybook	p. 29
Rehearse	p. 30
A Writer's Place	p. 30
Reading for Revision	p. 32
Test Readers	p. 33
Where Do We Find Test Readers?	p. 33
What Test Readers Do	p. 34
The Danger of Test Readers	p. 34
Setting the Reader's Agenda	p. 36
Reading Writing in Process	p. 37
Techniques of Responding	p. 38
Methods of Reader Response	p. 40
Rewrite with Focus	p. 44
Elements of Focus	p. 45
Selection	p. 45
Emphasis	p. 46
Clarity	p. 46
Premature Focusing	p. 46
How to Focus	p. 48
The List	p. 48
The Discovery Draft	p. 50
What if I Don't Discover in My Discovery Draft?	p. 54
How Do I Make an Instructor's Idea My Own?	p. 54
Understand the Assignment	p. 55
Interview the Assignment	p. 55
Rewrite by Context	p. 56
Connect	p. 57
How Do I Make the Boss's Idea My Own?	p. 57
Focus Repair	p. 58
Diagnosis: No Focus	p. 58
Testing Your Focus	p. 59
If the Diagnosis Is Positive	p. 61
Say One Thing	p. 62
How Can I Find That One Thing?	p. 62
But What about All the Other Good Stuff?	p. 67
Frame Your Meaning	p. 67
What to Leave Out	p. 68
What to Keep In	p. 69
Set the Distance	p. 69
When to Use Close-ups	p. 70
When to Step Back	p. 70
When to Zoom	p. 70
Interview with a Published Writer-Christopher Scanlan	p. 71
Rewrite with Genre	p. 75
Choosing the Genre	p. 76
Genre Provides Meaning	p. 77
The Five-Paragraph Theme	p. 78
The Unshaped Material	p. 79
Diagnosis: Ineffective Genre	p. 83
Genre Communicates Meaning	p. 84
Discovering the Genre for the Draft	p. 85
The Internal Genre	p. 85
The External Genre	p. 86
The Essential Narrative	p. 89
Narrative's Clock	p. 90
Questions Answered; Questions Asked	p. 91
Walking Beside the Reader	p. 92
Reading the Listener	p. 92
Entertaining the Reader	p. 93
Design Your Own Genre	p. 93
The Discovered Genre	p. 93
The Invented Genre	p. 94
Create an Effective Design	p. 95
What Is Saved	p. 96
What Is Discarded	p. 97
Case History of a Student Writer-Maureen Healy	p. 97
Rewrite with Structure	p. 119
Diagnosis: Disorder	p. 120
Answer the Reader's Questions	p. 123
Outline After Writing	p. 125
Expose the Structure of a Draft	p. 125
Outline After Writing	p. 126
Adapt the Structure	p. 126
Redesign the Structure	p. 126
Interview with a Student Writer-Kathryn S. Evans	p. 127
Rewrite with Documentation	p. 133
Diagnosis: Too Little Information	p. 135
The Writer's Eye	p. 136
The Importance of Information	p. 139
Provides Reader Satisfaction	p. 139
Establishes Authority	p. 140
Produces Lively Writing	p. 140
The Qualities of Effective Information	p. 141
Accuracy	p. 141
Specificity	p. 143
Significance	p. 144
Fairness	p. 146
The Basic Forms of Information	p. 146
Where Do You Find Information?	p. 148
Memory	p. 148
Observation	p. 149
Internet	p. 150
Interview	p. 150
Library	p. 151
Attribution	p. 154
Writing with Information	p. 156
The Craft of Selection	p. 156
Style	p. 157
Interview with a Student Writer-Jennifer Bradley-Swift	p. 160
Rewrite To-Develop	p. 166
Diagnosis: Superficial	p. 167
Techniques of Development	p. 168
Develop with Information	p. 168
Develop with Authority	p. 169
Develop with Clarity	p. 171
Put Meaning in Context	p. 172
Rewriting Starts with Rereading	p. 172
Read Fragments	p. 174
Read What Isn't Written	p. 175
Problem: No Territory	p. 176
Solution	p. 176
Problem: No Surprise	p. 176
Solution	p. 177
Problem: No Writer	p. 177
Solution	p. 177
Problem: No Respect	p. 178
Solution	p. 178
Problem: Too Little	p. 178
Solution	p. 179
Problem: Too Much	p. 179
Solution	p. 180
Problem: Too Private	p. 180
Solution	p. 180
Problem: No Significance	p. 181
Solution	p. 181
Problem: No Connection	p. 181
Solution	p. 182
Rewrite within the Draft	p. 182
Emphasize the Significant	p. 183
Pace and Proportion	p. 185
Length	p. 187
Rewrite by Ear	p. 194
What Is Voice?	p. 195
Hearing Your Own Writing	p. 196
Diagnosis: No Voice	p. 199
Hearing the Writer's Voice	p. 200
Hearing Your Own Voice	p. 205
Your Language or Mine?	p. 206
The Importance of Voice	p. 207
The Expected Voice	p. 208
The Formal Voice	p. 209
The Informal Voice	p. 209
Genre Voices	p. 209
The Voice of the Draft	p. 210
Case History of a Professional Writer-Donald M. Murray	p. 211
Rewrite with Clarity	p. 216
Twenty Ways to Unfinal a Draft	p. 218
The Attitude of the Editing Writer	p. 220
Writing Is Editing	p. 220
Imagine the Reader	p. 220
My Ear Is a Better Editor Than My Eye	p. 221
The Draft Will Tell You What It Needs	p. 221
Welcome Surprise	p. 221
Language Is Alive and Changing	p. 221
Accept Limitations	p. 222
Establish Achievable Standards	p. 222
Interview Your Draft	p. 222
Solutions to Common Editing Problems	p. 226
How Do I Recognize Surprise?	p. 226
How to Read to Edit	p. 227
How to Edit a Boring Draft so It Isn't	p. 229
The Craft of Editing	p. 232
The Tools of Revision	p. 233
A Student Case History-Roger LePage, Jr.	p. 234
The Student's Original Draft	p. 235
A Professional's Editing	p. 239
The Student's Reaction to Professional Editing	p. 245
The Student's Revision	p. 248
The Craft of Letting Go	p. 252
Why Writers Don't Let Go	p. 254
Fear of Exposure	p. 254
Obsession with Correctness	p. 255
Continuing Discovery	p. 255
How to Let Go	p. 256
Deadlines	p. 256
Collaboration	p. 257
Decreased Discovery	p. 257
When You Let Go	p. 257
Readers Make the Draft Theirs	p. 257
Free to Write	p. 259
Index	p. 260
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