Comments on: On Rewriting

By: chuck

chuck — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 17:02:54 +0000

I actually found myself hesitating often when I wrote on this subject. I’d pause, rephrase, stumble over my words. When I made my own comments about this issue on my blog, I don’t think I intended my statements to sound prescriptive, but simply meant to describe my writing habits. Funny how writing about my writing habits made for such a difficult, poorly phrased post.

By: Rory

Rory — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 15:46:51 +0000

There’s surely some irony in the fact that I’ve been thinking how best to comment on this post for a few days, but haven’t quite come up with something I want to commit to the page…

By: Chloe

Chloe — Fri, 08 Aug 2003 16:22:49 +0000

I think this problem people have with rewrites is that they post on whims. When you’re writing a book, a paper for school, etc., you do the rewrites before publishing. I think that’s the issue people have.

About Google Cache. There is a way to stop that. All my web pages are blocked from google cache. META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE”

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:35:07 +0000

I’m a great believer in revising entries, after I post I will read it back a few times and if something does not seem adequately clear or if I think it could be better phrased, I’ll wade in and change it no doubt. If over the next day or two I think of something that should be added or changed, or a correspondant suggests a change or addition, I will do it; whether I need to note the change, and how to do so, I decide according mostly to whimsy—I can just tell whether the change is “part of the original intent of the post” or not.—Well actually if the change is suggested by somebody else I will just about always note it, in order to provide attribution. I am skeptical of any ethical argument in this regard—the site is a record of my own (or your own, or whose ever the site belongs to) musings and if a modification is going to help me/you/whomever make sense of them then by all means do it! Artificially conscribing the actions you can take with regards to your journal is counterproductive, so say I.

By: chuck

chuck — Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:13:35 +0000

I’m really torn about these issues. Like you, I think I’m pretty cautious about seeing my words appear in the public sphere (another issue I may want to introduce to my students...). The blog has actually been helpful in that regard--I’ve become more comfortable with my potential audiences.

I’m still struggling with the role of blogs in my classroom. Like you, I think revision is important, that no piece of writing is ever finished (maybe I’ll use the Oates piece as well). I think I want students to use blogs as places to conduct thought experiments, not where their “final” writing will necessarily take place, but because blogs are relatively public (especially via search engines), that creates a major complication.