Why Revisions Are Hard to Do

I will not sugarcoat anything, but I fear revising based on the work I have written myself. I have enormous writing pieces waiting for me to read them on my desk at the moment, and I am pretending that I cannot see them. One of the papers is and an assignment of a journal which I am writing for a colleague. The next is my Ph.D. thesis. I take a lot of time making corrections on my reference list and organizing folders on my desktop. It is not the writing that is driving me nuts; it is part of thinking.

Over the years, I have realized that thinking is the hardest part of the revision, which overwhelms students. A review is hard, especially academic thinking on abstract and theoretical ideas and their application to a given argument. Doing the same in the revision stage is relatively more challenging than the thought that got you to come up with your first draft since you have to rethink the same ideas that are either misplaced or irrelevant. You then have to brainstorm on fresh ideas and find out how they might fit with others’ views.

For me, this kind of thinking process happens when I am changing the text. I plan to think and write, rather than thinking than writing. The process then means that I peruse through some drafts as I revise before I get satisfied with my work. The process is a bit hard and can take lengthy amounts of time, and it demands a lot of resources, both mentally and emotionally. I have grown as I do it, and I learn more about my writing content and how I can write to make my text readable and credible.

The truth of the matter is that it is not easy work. I dread doing revisions because it is tedious work, especially if the first draft period and the second one gets far stretched. It will consume much of your time. It takes a significant amount of effort to get back to the right space, and you will always want to push yourself to finish the writing and move on to the next one. I have also taken some positive lessons from it. For instance, in all this morning and whining, the revision process is vital and necessary. It will help you see that the way you think on any given topic is always not the best. The revision and writing and rewriting will go a long way to facilitate your overall growth as a writer. They will also help you deepen your knowledge and grasp of content and concepts in a much credible and transparent way to get you to know the meaning of the argument you make. In the process of writing, we tend to jot the things we see as we think them. In this stance, we have to think about what the text means and why others need to read the same text. We get forced to get to articulate in some manner that can trigger or challenge the things we think about, what we write, and the topics we jot.

As a scholar, you cannot do revisions while assuming that it can get done. Often, students deliver their pieces of work that they are sure they have not finished or that which is not good enough, but because they get stuck and fail to work out how to make improvements on their own. The students need some guidance from experts and those who understand the writing they do. They also need feedback that mirrors what they have executed well and that which they can point out gaps and trigger their thinking by asking the right questions. Writers need help; all of them do. It is because of this reason that readers, reviewers, and editors exist. Instructors and lecturers also do the same kind of work in schools. The type of feedback that students get helps them make better choices about their jotting and better understand where they get headed. They also get to know where they have messed up and how they can get back on track. It is a hard job, but it is a rewarding one in the end.