oh, and i hate titles too

Sunday, May 02, 2004, at 06:41PM

By Eric Richardson

I hate revising papers. I never feel like I can jump in and change things up but still keep a coherent point or flow. When I write a paper I pretty much write, and then am done. When I finish my conclusion I run a spell-check and turn it in. I don't even read back through it.

I don't know if that's really the USC Writing Program approved approach.

When I go to revise, though, I feel lost. I feel like I need an outline just to tell me where to get back in. The scope of the paper just sort of unnerves me. It's as if the little section that fits on my screen is insufficient for me to understand what it is that I was thinking. My papers aren't made up of words or paragraphs, they just are. Going back and tampering somewhere in the middle just feels so awkward, like I'm trying to make the paper fit a role it was never meant for.

That doesn't change the fact that I've got two papers that have to be revised by 1pm tomorrow to be turned in as a "portfolio." My papers and I are going to just have to learn to get over our dislike of each other and get serious.