The essay, “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your
Own Manuscripts”, is written by Donald Murray, who is an accredited author. In
his essay, Murray strongly asserts how necessary and essential it is to rewrite
and revise one’s writing and that one should be his own editor and critic.
Probably, all of the students would agree
that when they finish writing the rough drafts, the act of writing is done. Then,
we just read few more times to correct some spelling and grammatical errors,
and that is the complete revising process we go through after the writing rough
drafts. However, according to Murray, the completion of the writing rough
drafts is not the completion of the writing process, but rather it is the start
or the beginning of the writing process. This writing process is not just
re-reading of the rough draft, but it is process of producing and yielding the
most refined and polished work. Murray strongly emphasizes that when writers go
through the process of revision, “[they] must learn to be their own enemy” and
detach themselves from their works, so that they could be objective and
critical to their works. Later on in his essay, Murray introduces the eight
categories or parts where the maker’s eye should carefully look at. These eight
categories include information, meaning in the information, awareness of the
audience, form or genre, structure, development, dimension, and the voice of
the writer.
After reading Donald Murray’s “The Maker’s
Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts”, I have re-read my 2-page brainstorm
advertisement analysis and looked for the eight categories that Murray
emphasized. Of course, I found information in my paper, since about 55% of the
paper is about the advertisement information. I also found meanings in the
information, which is the analysis of the advertisement. Then I questioned
myself if I was aware of the audience by putting myself in reader’s shoes,
whether this information and analysis is clear to understand or not. Next
thing, I checked was the form and structure of my paper in general which I
thought the overall structure and form was not bad; however I felt that it
would be better if I had used smoother transition word to make the structure
flow better. For developing and considering dimension in the paper, I thought
that I was developing my idea and theme well enough for the readers to
understand, but I still need to add and subtract some parts that need to be
further explained. Finally, when I looked for my overall voice throughout the
paper, it was hard to find my voice, so I thought that maybe my voice in this
paper is too weak to find, and I felt the need to strengthen my voice when
expressing my theme and my thoughts to the audience.
Overall I had applied Murray’s eight considerable
categories, and I realized how important it is to re-read and revise the
writing with the maker’s eye.
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