Informal Writing:Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer and Response of a Laboratory Rate--or, Being Protocoled/Carol Berkenkotter and Donald Murray

In their articles Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer and Response of a Laboratory Rate--or, Being Protocoled, Carol Berkenkotter and Donald Murray attempt to analyze and discuss the highly researched and accredited writing process. Together they argue not every writer utilizes the original five step process of writing; prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading and publishing and that many times the steps are unclear and blur together. They are successful in this argument by analyzing Donald Murray through his writing own writing process. 

Synthesizing between articles isn't always easy. You would think the more articles you read, the easier it would be to put all of them into conversation together. Not the case for me at least. The articles we read, the more they blur together and there is so much information to put into conversation. To put this article first and conversation with Shitty First Drafts, I think they conflict in a way. Murray's writing style, the way I understand it, blurs together drafting and revising. Shitty First Drafts, discusses how all authors have that really shitty first draft that's just a huge ass mess to get all of their thoughts out. Murray doesn't seem that he writes in that way. It's more of a write some, revise it, write some revise it; which is the way I write. I'm not sure if this is the correct or healthy way to write, but at this point, its what works best for me. Yes this is a minor detail and ahead of schedule, but in Kleine's article he mentions how eager how the authors he interviewed were to talk to him about their writing. I also feel like Murray was extremely willing to about him writing. He did allow basically allow Burkenkotter to use him as a lab rat. Early in the 20 century authors had this image of being this unsocial, nerd, bookworms that didn't interact with the real world or at least that's how I feel people perceived them. I worry when I put articles into conversation that the topics or details I focus on are to minor and don't really matter but the smaller details of the article are really what interest me. 

After I dissected this article a  bit more and with the discussion we had in class it really helped me to understand. At first I really didn't the "deeper meaning" or what the article was trying to help us as students understand. I was having a really difficult time coding my writing process using the video I recorded of myself. A few of my categories like drafting and revising, in my writing process, were one big blob and I truly thought I was writing wrong. I still have the image in my head that authors sit down and they literally go into their own world and can't function until they've gotten everything out of their head. But, I think this article was helpful in understanding why we're writing this paper and there are other authors who have done this to help them understand their own writing process.