Berkenkotter and
Murray Articles
Summary
In their
articles “Decisions and Revisions” and “Response of a Laboratory Rat” Carol
Berkenkotter and Donald M. Murray try to persuade writers, both talented and
not, to evaluate and critique themselves while writing by vocally walking
themselves through their processes in order to catch mistakes they might
overlook if they’d continued to write in silence. Berkenkotter and Murray argue
that vocal digestion of one’s work can affect writing processes in stimulating and
constructive ways.
Pre-reading
When I
write, I’m usually listening music simultaneously. When writing academically,
music has the ability to distract me tremendously, but also the ability to aid
me when I’m writing about a particularly grueling or dry subject. When writing
for non-academic purposes, I tend to listen to music that flows with what I’m
thinking about, or conveys an emotion in a way that I cannot. I’ll listen to it
for inspiration.
Synthesis
This
reading reminds me of Kleine’s article, particularly the section where he
describes a library packed with students regurgitating facts they’ve stolen
from multiple textbooks into their research papers. They do this because they
are operating under the assumption that this is what their teachers would deem
A+ material. Berkenkotter and Murray touch on the idea that one must be
consciously aware of the audience they’re writing for while writing, in order
to articulate interpretations in ways that will be easy to grasp for the
intended audiences.
Questions for Discussion and Journaling
1) What
surprised me the most about Murray’s writing process was his lack or revision.
Not necessarily because I pride myself on my ability to revise productively (I
tend to not revise too heavily either) but because he is a professional, and I
naturally assumed he was hyper-critical of every facet of his writing. Like
Murray, a lot of my writing is planned. I’ll usually think of what I want to
say, or how I want to frame a statement, before I type a single word.
3) Berkenkotter
noted that planning becomes much more difficult when time regulations are put
into place. This tends to stress the subject, and subsequently produce subpar
writing. Berkenkotter also noted that writers, such as Murray, tend to believe
that consideration of one’s audience only occurs during forms of external
revision, such as editing and polishing sentences, paragraphs, word choices
etc. Berkenkotter disagrees, and notes that much writing is molded with the
audience in mind, implying the actual writing process contains a conscious
awareness of one’s audience. It’s also possible that this awareness could’ve
existed for so long that it eventually becomes subconscious, or simply a part
of writing that isn’t consciously recognized because it’s been practiced so
frequently.
Applying and Exploring Ideas
1) I’d say that
I do spend a decent amount of time revising my work. Earlier, I admitted to not
revise heavily. By that, I meant that while I’m not meticulous with the
analysis of my work, I do appreciate and practice revision in most of my
writings. If there’s a true disdain for any particular writing, or if the
writing is of little academic or personal importance, I’ll probably focus more
on polishing than sincere revision.
Meta Moment
From Berkenkotter
and Murray, I learned that verbal analysis can be quite constructive to the
various processes of professional writing. In the past, I’ve read a decent
amount of my work aloud, and while it did help me better my construction, it
was nice to have this sort of professional confirmation that yes, this is a
helpful tool and we encourage you to use it.
Personal Opinion
The article
was interesting in theory. The ideas of foreign setting and time constraints
being able to drastically affect your writing caught my attention. However,
this article, and almost every other one we’ve read so far, share one large
downfall: length. Like I said, while these articles are interesting in theory,
they’re not interesting enough to deservedly consume 15-20 pages. At a certain
point, everything reads the same, and at that point, I begin to think of these
articles as obligatory instead of desirable.
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