Summary of “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Exper
In “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” Nancy Sommers uses a case study to show what student writers and experienced writers do when they write and then revise. Twenty freshman from Boston University and the University of Oklahoma (the student writers) and twenty experienced adult writers from the same areas each wrote three essays. They rewrote each essay twice. Their writing and revising strategies were then analyzed.
The study found that student writers do not have the strategies for dealing with the whole essay. The student writers do not use the terms “revision” or “rewriting.” They explained that “revision was not a word th