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An Experiment by Nancy Sommers on the Difference in Revision between Student Writers and Experienced Writers

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An Experiment by Nancy Sommers on the Difference in Revision between Student Writers and Experienced Writers
Sommers says that the language students use to describe revision is about vocabulary, suggesting that they “understand the revision process as a rewording activity”.
How is that different from the way she argues that revision should be understood?

Nancy Sommers studies the problem of revision between students writers and more experienced writers. Those writers who are students focus more on the revision as fixing small errors and textual repetition, when more experienced writers focus on revision more generally, not only on the repetition of the words, but also on the repetition of the concept and ideas. This allows to the writers to do not get stack on superficial errors and let their ideas flow on the paper and to get across to the audience.

Nancy Sommers focuses on the importance of differentiating in revision between students and more advanced experienced writers. By doing a case study Nancy was able to study the problem. She proceeded by acquiring twenty freshmen students from Boston University and twenty more advanced adult journalists and overall academic writers in order to compare revision. With her experiment set, Sommers set out to discover the difference in interpretations of revision strategies between students and experienced adult writers. As Sommers explains, revising is the last step in the writing process, one that comes after both the first and second drafts. This means that revision comes only after having prewritten once, and written a paper twice. Because two drafts come before revision, revision can be interpreted as only small superficial mistakes, or more deep conceptual mistakes. With her experiment complete, Sommers had unveiled the mystery behind the interpretation of revision. Nancy Sommers discovered that to those writers who were students, revision simply meant going back and fixing small errors, such as repetition of words. This repetition does not include the repeating of ideas but only the repetition of

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