An Analysis Of Donald M. Murray's Writing

Donald M. Murray writes that there is a big difference when it comes to students writing for their classroom and professional writers finishing a first draft. First of all, professional writers do write as their job, and they know that their first draft will go through many edits before it is published. Some may even give their first draft but not even be accepted or published at all. In this case, if a writer’s draft of a book or essay is not even accepted, that person then must then come up with new ideas or come up with a new edit of their own before sending back a first draft again. The purpose of a writer is to keep on writing and always improving. As for students, they may not even be majoring in English or writing itself. They might
For example, Murray states that “writers must learn to be their own worst enemy”, also accepting criticism from other people and detaching themselves from their own pages so that they do not take anything personally (1981, p. 195). In this way, they must not take criticism seriously to heart and they must not take praise seriously, either, always being separate from the words they write. While he does talk about students in the beginning of his essay, he does not really write about them anymore and focuses more on writers until the end of the essay. He states what kind of attitudes they should have and writes that “a piece of writing is never finished” (1981, p. 198). I believe this can also mean that a story written a long time ago will still be edited over and over to fit the times and if the writer sees it has become a better
I believe he has authority and the leadership in what he says. I am not a professional writer, but I am someone who enjoys reading, looking at a new language, and learning more in English. I can only imagine the creativeness that goes through writer’s minds and how they put it on paper, or type it on a computer, for I have a different major and different goal in my life. I am not someone who has the authority on what a writer should be, but I can understand it. Students, on the other hand, cannot be their own worst enemy. If they are their worst enemies, then they end not doing well in school- I believe we as students should always stay motivated. We are also given essays as assignments and not as part of our life’s passion- it is important that we meet the goals of the teacher, but we do not have to write over and over for a long period of time before we wait to be published (I think some do, but only a few who want to be in the magazines or school journals). Unlike writers who cannot take any feedback seriously, we must take our teachers’ feedback very seriously or else we will not look like we are learning. It also would not look like we are paying attention to the teacher and I think we should take it personally, or else our grades would not be as high as we want. For example, in one article I found, there are a lot of students in college who do not know how to write an essay or form a good argument as asked by their teachers. It is stated