Response Paper

-Fall Term Sophomore Year

Introduction: Purpose of summary is to demonstrate knowledge of main ideas. The response is to independent thinking skills. Genre stages is synopsis ^main ideas^response.

The third chapter in Donald Murray’s book A Writer Teaches Writing (2004) is “”Drafting, Revising and Editing”. There are three main viewpoints in this chapter. First, Murray suggests the ways to produce a draft and the difficulties a writer may confront when they begin writing. Second, he states that revision is an integral part of writing. Third, he asserts that editing and publishing work complete the writing process.

In the “drafting” part, Murray refers to “deadline” as a motivation of writing. I find this idea convincing in some respects. One of my experiences tells that a deadline can push me to finish my writing in my daily study. When I start my writing for my ENG course, I will go to check the deadline first. Then, I start to make a “to do list” for my writing in accordance with the time I have. During the limited time, I should select the information I collected, organize my writing structure and make a revision. Therefore, the deadline motivates me to finish my writing in time. In tandem with it, when I meet an in-class writing, I have to do my writing in a short time. I force myself to write down somethings without hesitation. Therefore, I can finish my writing efficiently by the deadline.

However, while Murray’s idea is useful, it disturbs me in some ways. I am not sure whether all writers can guarantee the good quality of their writing in a limited time. When I wrote my process essay, I collected several topics for my writing but I had to quickly choose one because of the deadline. Therefore, I picked a simple topic to start my writing. However, I gradually found that the topic was too dull to written and I got good ideas for another topic. Due to the deadline, I did not have any time to change my topic and rewrite my essay. Therefore, although Murray suggests that writers must have a deadline when they are writing, he does not give a certain requirement for the deadline he refers to. I guess I wonder if sufficient time is still demanded by a deadline.

In “Drafting, Revising and Editing”, I am puzzled by how to start my writing draft, so I still put my attention in the first part. Murray also states it is true that writers have their writing block. He suggests several possible reasons why writers lose themselves in writing. I like the idea because it is very helpful to me. In my ENG1430 course in last semester, I met the block when I began to write my reflection essay. Before the course, I rarely read reflection essays let alone writing it. For this reason, I wrote nothing on my paper after a two-hour “struggle”. Finally, I came to my professor and told my problem to him. He suggested I should try to start the things in my mind rather than writing something I did not want to tell. This idea is also suggested by Murray. Therefore, I tried to write something I have already thought of. Then I arranged and integrated my old and new ideas in my essay. That worked well. Therefore, I believe this point of Murry will give me more help in my future writing.

Works Cited

Murray, D. M. (2004). A Writer Teaches Wrting. Boston: Heinle.