Document Type
Article
Publication Title
The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute
Publication Date
2008
Volume
14
First Page
291
Abstract
(Excerpt)
Revision is an integral part of the first-year legal writing curriculum. Students rewrite most of their writing assignments for a grade, and, in many cases, the rewrites are weighted more heavily than the first drafts. The purposes of a rewrite in legal writing, as with other writing, are to resolve any inconsistencies and fill in gaps, strengthen the analysis and reasoning, and present the information in the clearest way possible. Though legal writing professors devote substantial time to the rewrite phase of assignments, in my experience, law students traditionally treat an assignment as completed as soon as they turn in their first draft for a grade. Rather than making substantive revisions during the rewrite phase, they concentrate on superficial edits to word choice, grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and citation. Thus, it is not uncommon for students to submit rewrites that are substantively unchanged from their first drafts.
These typical revising habits suggest that first-year legal writing students follow the traditional linear model of writing, in which the writing process is organized in a fixed linear sequence and rewriting is the final stage in that sequence. They also suggest that the students severely truncate the rewriting stage by focusing on mostly surface changes while ignoring whether the text makes sense to the reader. When students are taught to use the linear model of writing or to address mainly surface edits during revision, they are in effect discouraged from revisiting their original decisions. This impairs their ability to see the weaknesses in their writing and to transform the structure to meet their reader’s needs. To encourage students to revise more globally and to do so throughout their writing experience, not just at the end, professors need to help students understand that the writing process is recursive, not linear. Under a recursive model, writers continually revisit all aspects of their writing experience so that they can discover the best way to organize and communicate their thoughts to the reader. This model presents an opportunity for law students to see their writing through the reader’s eyes and thereby produce better revision.
Part I of this Article describes the problem that prevents law students from revising effectively. Part II addresses the underlying cause of the problem. Part III evaluates the recursive method of composing. Finally, Part IV recommends teaching tools aimed at helping students employ substantive “re-vision” techniques that can raise their writing to the next level.
Comments
Available at: https://www.legalwritingjournal.org/article/24992-better-revision-encouraging-student-writers-to-see-through-the-eyes-of-the-reader