{"id":8952,"date":"2018-03-12T08:11:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T13:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/?p=8952"},"modified":"2025-07-02T13:34:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T18:34:43","slug":"revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Revision Takes Time: Teaching Inefficiency in the Writing Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

By Emily L. Loney <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI may correct an accidental slip (I am full of them, since I run on regardless) but it would be an act of treachery to remove such imperfections as are commonly and always in me.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Emily
Emily Loney is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English at UW-Madison and has taught at the Writing Center since 2015. Her research focuses on time and revision in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature. Photo credit: Jane Loney.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 1588, Michel de Montaigne told readers that, although he was revising his Essays<\/em>, he would not be \u201cfixing\u201d his book. Montaigne was in the process of publishing a massively revised edition of the book that he had first published eight years before. (This book of \u201cessays,\u201d incidentally, would give us our word for those papers that we see so often in the Writing Center.) In his 1588 revision of the Essays<\/em>, Montaigne was willing to correct typos or factual inaccuracies, but he was not going to remove arguments or perspectives that, eight years after their first publication in 1580, he no longer supported. To do this would be, he says \u201can act of treachery.\u201d Montaigne is not interested in using revision to show a perfect, final product\u2014the state of his thoughts at a single moment in time. Instead he shows his changeable, mutable self through his writing\u2014what one scholar has called the \u201crecord of his thoughts in movement.\u201d [2] Montaigne uses his revisions to show the open-ended nature of his writing process: rather than closing off possibilities, he shows his branching ideas and the evolution of his thoughts. He shows false starts, imperfections, and change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n
\"The
Montaigne’s Essays.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For Montaigne, writing, like life, is not as linear as it might at first seem. Montaigne describes the ever-shifting nature of both his own self and his writing. We do not develop towards an already set end-goal, but rather change: first in one direction and then another. We are shaped by our experiences and we cannot predict our futures. In much the same way, Montaigne\u2019s Essays<\/em> are not progressing towards a predetermined final revision. Instead, they change as he does. Writing does not always turn out the way that you were expecting it to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Montaigne refuses to \u201ccorrect\u201d his Essays<\/em> even as he continually revises them, he emphasizes the role of error in his writing process\u2014the role of false starts and of change. Writing, we might say, is an experience of imperfection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inefficient Writing<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Green
Writing and rewriting on a Saturday morning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Writing is a deeply inefficient process. By this I do not mean only that writing is slow\u2014although it often is. But frequently, writing is not a linear process from initial idea to final polished piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a writer, I hope to end up with a better idea than the one I started with, but I go down all sorts of labyrinths and dead-ends and culs-de-sac to get there. Writing happens through trial-and-error and through revision. As much as I hope that the end product is better than where I started, there is not always a straight line between my first idea and where I end up. Instead, I try out ideas that don\u2019t work. I end up rewriting sections and even chapters when I get stuck. I differ from Montaigne in that I do<\/em> tend to erase the imperfections of failed attempts (zigzagging arguments being rather unusual in modern academic writing). Yet my writing process involves all of those kinds of error that Montaigne preserves in his revisions. Not being afraid of getting it wrong is what allows me to write. Inefficiency is part of my process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ticking Clock<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So how do inefficiency and imperfection intersect with the space of the Writing Center?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Writing Center, the clock\u2019s always ticking. Anne Ellen Geller writes about this in \u201cTick-Tock, Next: Finding Epochal Time in the Writing Center,\u201d when she describes a series of drawings that her writing center staff had made to illustrate their appointments. All throughout their drawings, she realizes, \u201c[c]locks are everywhere.” [3]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I meet with a writer, I start the meeting by taking off my watch and setting it between us, so that we can both be aware of how much time we have left and can make informed decisions about what to prioritize. I ask the writer when their paper is due and how much time they have to work on it. I often find myself making internal calculations: How much can I cover in the half-hour or hour that I\u2019m going to meet with a writer? How can I get the writer onto a path that will lead them to success and make their paper as good as it can be in the time before it\u2019s due? What should I prioritize?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being aware of the immediate needs of our students is important, and Writing Center tutors need to respect that our students have deadlines, jobs, commitments, and limited time to work on projects. We need to honor the time that they have when they meet with us. But are there moments when we can also teach inefficiency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, I want to suggest, when we build relationships with students who we meet with regularly\u2014perhaps especially students who are working on longer projects\u2014we can open up the time to be inefficient. When we know that we have weeks of meetings ahead of us, or that they have months of writing before they finish undergraduate, masters, or PhD theses, we can embrace our extended timeline and can be inefficient, imperfect writers.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"The
Looking through the clock at the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay. Photo credit: Rachel Loney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Failure as Pedagogy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What would it look like to model inefficient writing in the Writing Center? How do we encourage students to see the playfulness and open-ended-ness of being inefficient writers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start thinking this through, I want to turn to Allison Carr\u2019s 2013 article \u201cIn Support of Failure.\u201d [4] Talking about the shame and stasis that she experienced in the face of her own fear of failure, Carr asks us to embrace the possibility\u2014and perhaps necessity\u2014of messing up. Rather than making us fear bad grades or see ourselves as failures if our projects stall, Carr wants to encourage us to see failure as a part of the creative process. \u201cWhat,\u201d she asks, \u201cif we give ourselves permission to experience failure on its own terms, not as something that exists only in opposition to something else but as something that is present<\/em>.\u201d Failure can be creatively powerful, allowing us to see new possibilities. She writes: \u201cFailure reverberates. It expands. And it makes visible what we often take for granted. In causing notice, it helps us see that there are other ways of moving through the world, alternative ways of coming to know lived experience.\u201d Error, inefficiency, and failure can create good writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carr proposes a \u201cpedagogy of failure\u201d that teaches students to embrace what happens when things go wrong\u2014a pedagogy that opens students up to the oddity and unpredictability of writing. \u201cWhat if a pedagogy of failure dropped writers into the wilderness from the start and asked them to make their own path?\u201d Students might, Carr argues, become empowered by embracing the emotional experience of \u201cfailing\u201d to write\u2014and finding a way out of that failure. Carr\u2019s consideration of failure speaks to Montaigne\u2019s discussion of imperfection: error is not something that we should be afraid of, but that we should live with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carr then sets out a number of writing exercises that teachers might adopt in order to encourage students to embrace the emotional experience and creative power of failure. Although some of these are much more relevant to the composition classroom than to the time constraints of the Writing Center, she provides, I think, a useful starting point for thinking about thinking about how we can model the deeply inefficient practice of writing. For example, she designs an assignment in which students are asked to repeatedly find new ways to say something: \u201cThe idea is to get comfortable with \u2018getting restless,\u2019 as Nancy Welch might say, by working intently and intensively on the same project, focusing in each draft not on how to say it better but on how to say it differently.\u201d (Carr\u2019s suggestion here echoes Toby Fulwiler\u2019s approach in \u201cProvocative Revision.\u201d [5]) Students are asked to focus not on betterment but on experimentation: they try possibilities that will not all work out, but in doing so, they become less committed to only trying out ideas that work<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an exercise that many of us have probably experimented with in the Writing Center: asking students to generate multiple ideas before picking the best one. Recently, though, I\u2019ve been trying to think more intentionally about how we can use this sort of exercise to model the complexities and inefficiencies of the writing process within Writing Center meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tutoring Inefficiency<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Last semester, for example, I worked with a graduate student writer who was preparing a few articles for publication. We met regularly, and in the course of our meetings, we talked about the complexities of the dissertation-writing process, where ideas don\u2019t always go where you were expecting them to. During one of our sessions, we tried out a variant of Carr\u2019s exercise in multiplicity: when we talked about how she was going to organize the next section of her paper, she laid out an outline. Instead of then breaking it down into its constituent parts, though, we then talked about other organizational schemas and figured out one or two alternative ways that she might approach this part of the article. Ultimately, of course, she picked the one option that she liked best, and she drafted part of that section for our next meeting. In our conversation, though, we spent some time considering the possibilities and open-ended-ness of the writing process. We thought about the different choices that she might make. Without departing too much from normal Writing Center pedagogy, we were able to use that meeting to think about her rhetorical goals while also speaking on a \u201cmeta\u201d level about how inefficiency is a part of long writing projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modeling the odd twists and turns of developing a project can be a useful pedagogical move, especially when working with writers on long-term projects. This kind of approach isn\u2019t always a good choice and isn\u2019t always possible: students have deadlines and the clock is always ticking. But when we meet with students on an ongoing basis, especially students working on longer projects that will probably lead them in unexpected directions, I\u2019m trying to think about how we can help students see error and inefficiency and, yes, failure as a normal part of the tangled process of writing. Error, Montaigne would want us to remember, is oh so very normal.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A
The flower clock in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo Credit: Jane Loney.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Keeping the Conversation Going<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For further resources and reflections on inefficiency in Writing Center tutoring, you may be interested in: Brad Hughes\u2019s post \u201cStarting a Slow-Writing Movement<\/a>\u201d; Erica Kanesaka Kalnay\u2019s post \u201cPlay and the Writing Center\u2014From Kindergarten to College<\/a>\u201d; and Tori Thompson Peters\u2019s post \u201cLet\u2019s Chat: Considering \u2018Friendly Talk\u2019 in the Writing Center<\/a>.\u201d Leigh Elion\u2019s post on composition pedagogy in the presence of the California wildfires, \u201cTeaching in an Emergency: Writing Centers, Wildfires, and What We Take with Us<\/a>,\u201d offers a different but very necessary perspective on deadlines and writing process, as does Rob McAlear\u2019s post, \u201cTaking the Pot off the Stove: Teaching Students to Stop Writing Well<\/a>,\u201d about helping our students to be \u201cdone\u201d their writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, please share your thoughts in the comments. How do you understand inefficiency in your writing and tutoring practices? How might we be attentive to the practicalities of deadlines and writers\u2019 needs while also being attuned to the complexities of writing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Endnotes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

[1] Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays<\/em>, translated by M. A. Screech (Penguin Books, 2003), p. 989. In the French, Montaigne writes: \u201cJe corrigerois bien une erreur accidentale, dequoy je suis plein, ainsi que je cours inadvertement: mais les imperfections qui sont en moy ordinaires et constantes, ce seroit trahison de les oster.\u201d See Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais<\/em>, edited by Jean Balsamo, Michel Mangien, and Catharine Magnien-Simonin (Gallimard, Biblioth\u00e8que de La Pl\u00e9iade, 2007), p. 918.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2] R. A. Sayce, The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration<\/em> (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972), pp. 16-17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3] Anne Ellen Geller, \u201cTick-Tock, Next: Finding Epochal Time in the Writing Center,\u201d The Writing Center Journal<\/em> 25.1 (2005), p. 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4] Allison Carr, \u201cIn Support of Failure,\u201d Composition Forum<\/em> 27 (Spring 2013), not paginated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5] Toby Fulwiler, \u201cProvocative Revision,\u201d The Writing Center Journal<\/em> 12.2 (Spring 1992), pp. 190-204.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Emily L. Loney \u201cI may correct an accidental slip (I am full of them, since I run on regardless) but it would be an act of treachery to remove such imperfections as are commonly and always in me.\u201d [1] In 1588, Michel de Montaigne told readers that, although he was revising his Essays, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,54,52,294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peer-tutoring","category-technology","category-tutorial-talk-and-methods","category-writing-center-pedagogy"],"yoast_head":"\nRevision Takes Time: Teaching Inefficiency in the Writing Center - Another Word<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Revision Takes Time: Teaching Inefficiency in the Writing Center - Another Word\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Emily L. Loney \u201cI may correct an accidental slip (I am full of them, since I run on regardless) but it would be an act of treachery to remove such imperfections as are commonly and always in me.\u201d [1] In 1588, Michel de Montaigne told readers that, although he was revising his Essays, he […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Another Word\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-12T13:11:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-02T18:34:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Featured-Image-Image-1-1024x768.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad Hughes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brad Hughes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Brad Hughes\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/fd6b5a9be85420bb1dfad1105c48ab14\"},\"headline\":\"Revision Takes Time: Teaching Inefficiency in the Writing Center\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-12T13:11:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-02T18:34:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2127,\"commentCount\":6,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Featured-Image-Image-1.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Peer Tutoring\",\"Technology\",\"Tutorial Talk and Methods\",\"Writing Center pedagogy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/\",\"name\":\"Revision Takes Time: Teaching Inefficiency in the Writing Center - Another Word\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Featured-Image-Image-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-12T13:11:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-02T18:34:43+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/revision-takes-time-teaching-inefficiency-in-the-writing-center\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Featured-Image-Image-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/03\\\/Featured-Image-Image-1.jpg\",\"width\":3072,\"height\":2304,\"caption\":\"The flower clock in Geneva, Switzerland. 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