Re: editing skills

["Pam R. VanHaitsma" <prvanhai@svsu.edu>]

Carl,
	Certainly there are plenty of editing and proofreading skills that a
teacher can teach an entire classroom of students.  Often times, though,
these skills get stored away somewhere or thrown out and are not
developed or practiced.  So really, the students know about the skills,
but don't necessarily know how to do the skills.  This is where I think
that a Writing Center tutor can really make a difference because he/she
can sit down with a student and not only talk about skills, but also model
them and get the student to practice them.  A classroom teacher can maybe
do the same thing by setting up peer response groups.  Then, the students
can learn the editing and proofreading skills in two ways, by being forced
to looked at someone else's paper critically and by seeing critical
reading modeedl for them by other students.  More specifically, I'd say
that reading aloud, hearing text read aloud, and reading text backwards
are a few of the best ways to edit and proofread.
******************************************************************************

Pam VanHaitsma
Saginaw Valley State University
prvanhai@tardis.svsu.edu

******************************************************************************


On Thu, 21 May 1998, Carl Glover wrote:

> Dear Friends,
> 	One of my colleagues, a philosophy professor, teaches writing in
> our first-year seminar program.  His question to me is "How do you get
> students to develop critical eyes for their own papers?"   I think his
> question primarily coincerns the classroom teacher, but I'm sure the
> perspective of a writing center tutor would also be of interest to him.
> He is specifically concerned about students' inability to develop editing
> and proofreading skills.  I told him that I use bribery and threats, but I
> think he is seeking a more thoughtful response.  I welcome any of
> your thoughts to pass along to my colleague.
> 					Warm regards,
> 
> 
> 
> 					Carl W. Glover
> 					glover@msmary.edu
> 
>