ABSTRACT
Questions like these are just a few of those that writers might ask themselves when they are composing or that readers might ask writers after reading drafts of their writing. Such questions help writers rethink and reconsider their initial rhetorical choices about content, development, organization, sentence structure, and word choice so they can revise their work and improve it. Some writers, however, especially student writers, typically ask different questions: Is my grammar correct? Is this word spelled correctly? Do I need a comma here? This second set of questions reflects an older view of revision, which considered revision to be a mechanical process involving little more than correcting errors or making minor changes in
sentence structure or word choice to improve style. The first set of questions, on the other hand, illustrates a perspective on revision that has emerged from composing process research and theory over the last 30 years. This perspective, which is concerned primarily with issues of audience, purpose, content, organization, and style, reconceptualizes revision as a primary means of developing, elaborating, and shaping the intended meaning of a text.
