Analyzing the Benefits of Revision
Memos during the Writing
and Revision Process
BRYAN ANTHONY BARDINE and ANTHONY FULTON
rent draft. Appendixes A and B include both authors’
specific descriptions of revision memos; however, the
aforementioned characteristics apply to both. As students write revision memos, their focus must remain
on the textual choices they make—considering not only
the changes they made, but also the reason for those
changes. Using revision memos allows students to critically analyze their own texts, which is a skill many high
school and college students find difficult to develop.
Educator John Dewey (1938) argued that self-reflection
is essential for intellectual development. Revision memos
provide students with the opportunity to do just this sort of
self-reflection. According to Murray (1982), self-reflection
is unavoidable. Murray believes that as writers move
through the writing process they engage in a conversation with their other self. This other self regulates the
writing process by reviewing the writer’s work and acting
as a critic, providing the writer with distance to view the
work objectively and assess what needs to be improved
or changed.
Essentially, revision memos provide a forum in which
students develop the other self. Whether reflecting on
a draft from earlier in the semester or reexamining
a text for submission the next day, students obtain a
renewed perspective on their work. This point corresponds with Swartzendruber-Putnam (2000), who uses
various forms of self-reflective writing in activity-centered high school English classes. She maintains that
weekly writers’ logs, draft letters, and portfolio letters
enable students to reflect on their work, evaluate their
performance, develop new ideas, and practice new
writing techniques. She argues that, through continued
practice, self-reflective writing heightens the students’
Abstract: In this article, the authors examine the role
revision memos played in composition classrooms. Both
authors used the memos to help students reflect on their
writing and continue revising. The memos also served
as guides for the instructors as they responded to their
students’ writing. The memos were a reminder that the
instructors needed to focus their commentary so that
the students would be able to revise more effectively.
The authors give student examples that show how the
memos successfully helped the writers improve throughout the semester. Each author includes an appendix that
describes how he used revision memos in his class.
Keywords: composition, reflection, response to writing,
revising, revision memo
T
he revision strategies that student writers impose
on themselves continue to be a concern of processoriented teaching in the composition classroom.
Researchers have examined a variety of approaches
including how unskilled and experienced writers revise
their writing (Berkenkotter 1983; Perl 1979; Sommers
1980) and how much teachers’ commentaries on students’ writing affect revision (Connors and Lunsford
1993; Dobler and Amoriell 1988; Onore 1984; Straub
1996). In this article, we examine the use of student revision memos as a means to get students critically thinking and actively analyzing their working texts. Revision
memos are written documents student writers complete
after they revise a piece of writing. When writing revision
memos, students detail the strengths and weaknesses
they see in the new draft, their revision focus for future
drafts, and the particular changes they made to the cur-
Bryan Anthony Bardine, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of English at
the University of Dayton, Ohio. Anthony Fulton, MA, is working on his PhD in rhetoric and composition at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Copyright © 2008 Heldref Publications
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awareness of not only what they learn, but also how
they learn.
In turn, revision memos allow teachers to gauge
each individual student’s writing process and revision
strategies. This notion echoes Crowley’s (1977) findings in which she uses composition diaries to analyze
the composing processes of beginning and experienced
writers in an advanced English composition course.
As Crowley notes, the diaries indicated that students
employed a near-linear process with little or no recursive movement because of a lack of commitment or
interest in the assignment, adding that many students
completed the assignment the night before the deadline. As a result, she structured assignments and created
activities that engaged the students and emphasized
recursive writing.
In terms of revision strategies, Bamberg (2003)
addresses the concepts of detection and diagnosis,
explaining that after writers detect a problem in their
texts, “they must be able to turn that detection into a
diagnosis that suggests what needs to be done to correct the problem” (116). However, she posits that many
novice writers lack the ability to detect or diagnose
larger problems. Revision memos then allow instructors to gauge a student’s ability to detect and diagnose
key structural issues. Ultimately, self-reflective writing
“provides a new form of feedback” for both students
and teachers, initiating a written dialogue between student and teacher (Kusnic and Finley 1993, 7).
However, there are several challenges to successfully implementing self-reflective memos. First, Beach
(1976) asserts that the ability to engage in self-evaluation
requires the proper attitude, the willingness to “judge
one’s writing from a detached, nonegocentric perspective and to trust one’s own criteria for revising as valid”
(160). For students, this comes with time and regular
practice. As MacGregor (1993) points out, most beginning student writers “often generalize about their experience with little substantiation or exemplifying detail
or enumerate particulars without drawing any larger
synthesis or conclusion” (38). Finally, environment
is also a factor. Personalizing the students’ work and
establishing the classroom as a community of writers
provides the ideal conditions for self-reflective writing
(Eaton and Pougiales 1993).
To overcome most challenges, teachers must clearly
state the purpose and rationale for all self-reflective
writing, implement collaborative learning, clarify the
audience, and tailor assignments to promote selfdevelopment (MacGregor 1993). SwartzendruberPutnam (2000) echoes this point, explaining, “These
assignments alone are not the only key to creating
better writers who are actively involved in their own
learning” (89). Beach (1979) found no difference
between the revision processes of students who wrote
self-evaluation forms and students who revised with-
March/April 2008
out any guidance, concluding that the self-evaluation
forms were ineffective because the students had not
received proper instruction to step back from their own
writing and view it more objectively.
As existing research details, revision memos offer
many benefits; however, it is important to understand
the benefits and how to properly use the memos before
implementing them in the classroom. In the following
observations, we offer suggestions and examples of
how revision memos benefit students and how teachers can use them in their classrooms. These examples
are based on our own teaching experiences in first-year
college composition classes over several semesters.
Although our experience is in the college classroom,
we believe that revision memos would work well in the
high school classroom. Through workshops and oneon-one instruction, students can develop an interest in
reflecting on their writing. In effect, they can develop
a heightened awareness not only of specific course
concepts, but also of how they learn and comprehend
material, specifically their own writing and revision
strengths and weaknesses.
How Students Benefit from Revision Memos:
Bryan’s Observations
For the past four years, in each of the college writing courses I taught (typically first-year writing and
some upper-level writing courses), I have used revision
memos. I allow students to revise their papers as often
as they wish throughout the semester. However with
each revision they must write a revision memo, without which I will not read the revision. Memos are typically one to two pages long; although I do not require
a certain number of pages, I do stress the importance
of incorporating detail. Once the students submit
revisions, I first read the memos to understand the
students’ opinions of their drafts. Reading the memos
also allows me to focus my responses to their writing.
I may write a few comments on the memos—typically
questions or positive comments—but I never grade
them. Grading the memos would negatively change
the students’ approaches to writing them. Ideally, students are making global changes to their papers; one
of the goals I have for the revision memos is to help
students begin to analyze their writing in more depth.
Often, this is not the case early in the semester, but the
more the students revise their work, the more detailed
their comments become. After reading the memos, I
read and respond to the revision, and return the papers
to the writers; if possible, I will conduct one-on-one
conferences with the students as well.
My primary goal for the revision memos is to help
students begin to recognize their own strengths and
weaknesses. Furthermore, the more they use the
memos, the more I try to encourage them to shift
their focus from the microstructural editing on which
Vol. 81, No. 4
Revision Memos
students tend to rely to the macrostructural or global
revisions that tend to help students’ writing improve
more dramatically. In my experience, using revision
memos enables students to learn to recognize issues
with the content and structure of their essays, which is
often a difficult job for inexperienced writers. The following examples, although not consistent among all
of my students, show that revision memos can have a
positive effect on the way students examine their own
writing and improve as writers.
Amanda, a student from one of my first-year writing
courses, used the revision memos effectively during the
semester I worked with her. The following examples
are from a memo attached to her fourth essay of the
semester. At this stage in the course, Amanda had
considerable experience writing revision memos, as
evidenced by the amount of information and detail she
includes in the memo itself. For instance, early in this
memo she considers her audience and how the organizational problems of her essay may affect the reader’s
understanding of her text. She writes, “I noticed I
jumped around a bit and needed to go through and
make sure the reader understood what I meant at certain points.” Many students fail to consider their readers at all, much less in terms of an essay’s organization;
one reason that Amanda is able to do this is because of
her consistent use of revision memos.
Later in the memo, Amanda considers her word
choice in comparison with her previous paper. She
writes, “I changed some of my wording so that it was
easier to understand and I was not as wordy as my
last paper.” This comment is telling for a number of
reasons. First, Amanda is not only thinking about
the essay she is writing now, she is also making connections to work she did in the past that showed she
had difficulty avoiding wordiness. Making this kind of
connection is important because she is learning from
past mistakes and trying to correct them in her current
work. Second, because of the structure of the revision
memos, she is reading the comments written on her
papers, something many students fail to do, and using
them to improve future drafts. Later, Amanda discusses
what research she needs to do to improve her paper.
She writes, “I was a little disappointed . . . and if I
were to do this paper over . . . I would have liked to
have found some stunning statistics so that the reader
would know the severity of the problem.” Here, as
with the second example, Amanda is thinking about
how to approach future drafts of the essay, although in
this case the research is her focus. The revision memo
gives her a place to think and write about not only her
strengths and weaknesses but also her future plans,
which many students do not consider until the next
assignment, if at all.
Using the revision memo throughout the semester
provided Amanda the opportunity to spend more time
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with her writing, both because she was writing more
and thinking about her writing more often. She was
also allowing for the revision processes by the end of
the semester, which she had never considered prior to
using the revision memos. Her essays at the end of the
semester were more focused and better supported, and
she understood more about herself as a writer.
Andrea, another student in the same class, began
the semester not using revision memos as much as she
should have; however, as the semester progressed, her
focus moved from primarily grammar and punctuation
issues to content, organization, and audience awareness issues. In her first revision memo of the semester,
Andrea focused primarily on grammar. She writes, “I
did go back and make some minor grammar changes.”
Later in the semester, in her fourth revision memo, she
includes more detail and her responses are concerned
primarily with the content of her essay and with her
audience. One of the requirements of the assignment
was to consider how those opposed to the writer’s
thesis would respond. She writes, “The paragraph that
represents the opposing view was packed full of information. I felt I needed to set up my argument by showing the opposition that I understand their view.” In this
case, the use of the memos enabled me to understand
why she focused on the opposition’s stance early in
the essay and showed me that she is thinking of her
audience.
In Andrea’s memo, she concludes by considering
what to do next and how she will support her position.
She writes, “Maybe if I were to write on this subject
again I would focus on two central points to support
my thesis, instead of trying to jam in so much information.” For this paper, Andrea felt that she included
too much information for the reader, making the essay
more difficult to follow. She used the memo to clarify
in her mind how she would approach a future draft
and what she still needed to accomplish with this draft:
how to support her argument better.
In both examples, Amanda and Andrea showed that
the use of the memos allowed them to analyze their
texts in more detail and helped them focus on the content and structure for future drafts. Neither student was
particularly interested in these considerations at the
beginning of the semester based on what they wrote in
their memos. By consistently using the memos, both
students’ writing improved and they paid more attention to their writing.
How Teachers Can Read Revision Memos
to Maximize Student Benefits: Anthony’s
Observations
Students in my first-year composition (FYC) courses,
usually first- and second-semester freshmen, have the
option of revising four of their five major papers. A
newly revised draft is due one week after the paper is
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handed back with a grade, and with each rewrite, the students must complete a revision memo—typically a oneto two-page reflective piece in which they informally
recount the feedback they received on their original
draft from both their peers and myself. Most important, the students discuss their revisions and articulate
the reasons they made those choices. The assignment
sheet (appendix B) stipulates that they must show
these changes by using at least two quotations from
their paper, as opposed to providing a shopping list of
the changes enacted. Finally, the students evaluate the
strengths and weaknesses of the final draft. Moreover,
the assignment sheet stresses that a revision memo
should focus on the revision process rather than the
editing process.
However, despite this stipulation many FYC students
and high school students struggle with the concept of
macrolevel and microlevel changes. Unfamiliar with
the process of self-reflection and unable to step back
and evaluate their own work objectively, most students
sink into their comfort level of highlighting simple
corrections and word changes. Through continued
practice, as self-reflection becomes more natural, the
students begin identifying larger issues and work to
correct them. Therefore, I employ revision memos to
track this progress, especially in terms of Bamberg’s
(2003) detection and diagnosis.
For example, Chris, in revising his critique of a
source text from a B− paper, realized that to make his
paper stronger he needed to communicate his ideas
“more logically.” To accomplish this, Chris explains,
“I redesigned the structure of my paper by creating a
new and more logical outline. I began by correcting
my intro, creating a more focused thesis.” Returning
to the source text to gain a better understanding of
the material before rewriting his body paragraphs, he
notes, “After I created the format of my paper I moved
sentences and paragraphs to compliment [sic] my new
essay.” Here, Chris demonstrates the ability to detect
and diagnose issues at the global level. Identifying
that his problems with clarity and organization could
not be remedied by simply changing a few words, he
returned to the prewriting phase and constructed a new
outline based on a clearer understanding of the source
text. Diagnosing the problem on a global scale, he then
moved and deleted entire paragraphs to correspond
with his new understanding of the text, rewriting the
thesis and rearranging the body paragraphs to match
his new argument. After analyzing his revision to
ensure that Chris enacted the changes he documented,
I commented that his strategies were excellent and that
he should apply those tactics with each revision. In
addition, I explained to Chris that his revision memo
demonstrated a strong, objective understanding of his
writing and recommended that he continue to reflect
in similar ways.
March/April 2008
In contrast, a second student, Dennis, working on
his summary of a source text, originally based his
paper on one minor point of the original article, as
opposed to the author’s thesis, main points, and findings. Clearly, the paper needed a major overhaul. In
his revision memo, Dennis notes, “The major weakness of my paper was the fact that it concentrated
too much on one single aspect of the essay.” He recognized that several sections from the original draft
could remain intact to make up a large portion of the
revised version. In revising, he incorporated the thesis
and main points into the introduction and conclusion of the original draft. He explained that his paper
could have been stronger if he “started from scratch”
but was unsure where to begin if he did. Unlike Chris,
while Dennis was able to detect a major problem,
he was not able to diagnose the larger problem and
reconfigure the entire paper. After reading Dennis’s
memo, I instructed him to compare both drafts and
use a highlighter to identify which sections of the
previous draft still occupied significant sections of the
revision. I then met with him to further discuss how
he could either minimize those sections or cut them
altogether to emphasize the new material.
Essentially, instructors can use revision memos to
schedule individual conferences and to plan discussions that will help students move through the process
of detection and diagnosis. This individual attention,
coupled with regular reflection, can help students
begin to diagnose critical problem areas by returning
to earlier steps in the writing process and rearranging
large blocks of texts.
Implications and Conclusion
It is important that teachers get students used to
thinking about their writing and revision practices.
They can do this by asking students to write revision
memos. Also, teachers need to focus their responses,
not by covering the page with comments, but rather
by responding to a few significant areas of a text. If
students cannot determine where to begin revising,
they will not be able to write an effective revision. By
focusing their responses, teachers make it easier for
students to revise because there are fewer comments
on the paper to detect and diagnose, another important skill students need to develop. Finally, teachers
need to allow students to revise every paper they write
throughout the semester. The more revisions and revision memos students write, the better they will become
at analyzing their texts. As this occurs, their writing will
improve as well. It is important to note that the student examples detailed in this article illustrate only the
benefits and methods of analyzing revision memos we
have found through our own observations and experiences in our classrooms. To more accurately assess the
effectiveness of the methods presented here and the
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Revision Memos
practice of using revision memos in general, a more
formal research study needs to be conducted. Although
our examples draw from college courses, the strategies and methods we have outlined will work in high
school and middle school writing classes. As writing
teachers, our goal is to help our students learn to look
more critically at their own work. The earlier student
writers begin reflecting on their writing, the easier it
will be for them to view their papers objectively and
revise more effectively.
REFERENCES
Bamberg, B. 2003. Revision. In Concepts in composition, ed. I. Clark,
107–29. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Beach, R. 1976. Self-evaluation strategies of extensive revisors and nonrevisors. College Composition and Communication 27 (2): 160–64.
———. 1979. The effects of between-draft teacher evaluation versus
student self-evaluation on high school students’ revising of rough
drafts. Research in the Teaching of English 13 (2): 111–20.
Berkenkotter, C. 1983. Decisions and revisions: The planning strategies of a publishing writer. College Composition and Communication
34 (2): 156–72.
Connors, R. J., and A. A. Lunsford. 1993. Teachers’ rhetorical comments on student papers. College Composition and Communication
44 (2): 200–23.
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Crowley, S. 1977. Components of the composing process. College
Composition and Communication 28 (2): 166–69.
Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and education. New York: Touchstone
Books.
Dobler, J. M., and W. J. Amoriell. 1988. Comments on writing: Features that affect student performance. Journal of Reading 32 (3):
214–23.
Eaton, M., and R. Pougiales. 1993. Work, reflection, and community: Conditions that support writing self-evaluations. In J. MacGregor
1993, 47–64.
Kusnic, E., and L. Finley. 1993. Student self-evaluation: An introduction
and rationale. In J. MacGregor 1993, 5–14.
MacGregor, J. 1993. Learning self-evaluation: Challenges for students. In Student self-evaluation: Fostering reflective learning, ed.
J. MacGregor, 35–46. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Murray, D. M. 1982. Teaching the other self: The writer’s first reader.
College Composition and Communication 33 (2): 140–47.
Onore, C. 1984. The transaction between teachers’ comments and students’ revisions: Catalysts and obstacles. ERIC Rep. No. ED258174.
Perl, S. 1979. The composing processes of unskilled college writers.
Research in the Teaching of English 13 (4): 317–36.
Sommers, N. 1980. Revision strategies of student writers and experienced adult writers. College Composition and Communication 31
(4): 378–88.
Straub, R. 1996. Concept of control in teacher response: Defining
the varieties of “directive” and “facilitative” commentary. College
Composition and Communication 47 (2): 223–51.
Swartzendruber-Putnam, D. 2000. Written reflection: Creating better
thinkers, better writers. The English Journal 90 (1): 88–93.
APPENDIX A
Directions for Use of Revision Memos to Students*
Revision memos are a great way to help writers think about what they have just written and begin to plan for future drafts. The purpose of revision memos is to help you become better at revising your writing. Furthermore, you will become better critical readers of
your own texts, which will help in your development as writers. By doing this with each essay, my goal is to improve your writing
much more than if you were not using the memos. When you write a revision memo, the following points must be included:
1. It is addressed to me.
2. It details the strengths and weaknesses your peers (and professor) saw in your draft.
3. It details your overall impression of the revision (strengths and weakness).
4. It details where you want to go from here—what your focus will be for your next draft.
5. It details the changes you’ve made from one draft to the next.
Each of these points must be in the memo. Typically, memos run anywhere from one to two pages in length, double-spaced. If you
do not submit a revision memo, I will not read your revision.
*
Created by Bryan Anthony Bardine
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March/April 2008
APPENDIX B
Directions for Use of Revision Memos to Students*
During the semester, you have the opportunity to revise any of the first four essays (summary and critique, visual argument analysis,
literary analysis, and the proposal). However, when you revise a paper you must also submit a revision memo. A revision memo is a
short, one- to two-page paper detailing your revision process and counts as a short homework assignment. The purpose of the assignment is to allow me to get a sense of your writing process. Furthermore, studies show that you will gain a better understanding of
your own writing process by explaining it to someone else. In your memo, you should:
1. Summarize the feedback you received from your peer and teacher
2. Explain what you thought were the major weaknesses of the paper
3. Discuss the major changes you made and why
4. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your final draft
Keep in mind, a revision memo should discuss large, structural changes. Provide specific examples of passages that you changed and
then discuss in detail why you made those changes. Do not discuss the editing process. It is implied that you will edit the paper for
grammatical mistakes, so you do not need to mention these in your memo. Because this is a reflective memo, you can use first person
“I.” It should be a detailed, yet informal, discussion.
If you choose to revise a paper, you must submit the newly revised draft, revision memo, and the original graded draft one
week from the date that I hand back the original draft with a grade. Please note, you can only revise an 89 percent or lower. For
each revision, I will take the higher grade. If, for instance, you received a C+ and then revised the paper to a B, I will erase the lower
grade and record the B. If, for some reason, the revised grade is lower than the original grade, I will keep the original grade. In other
words, revising a paper does not guarantee a higher grade, but it cannot hurt your grade.
Remember, you can always see me about your revision before turning it in for a new grade. It would also be a good idea to go to
the Write Place. Be sure to take the assignment sheet and rubric with you.
*
Created by Anthony Fulton