Abstract: Revision is often defined as the last stage in the writing process. Competent writers revise in order to adapt the text to their goals. Revision requires knowledge about texts, knowledge about strategies for revising, and a clear intention to use this knowledge to achieve a goal.
　　Key words:Writing; revision; competence
　　
　　ntroduction
　　English writing is very important in the daily life, and is also the weakest part of the four basic skills. At the present time, few college students write good English in their compositions, many of them are always making errors, and are frustrated in their attempts at written expression because of difficulty with the mechanical aspects of writing. The teacher of writing, therefore, needs effective ways of assisting students in overcoming the mechanical obstacles to writing.Many scholars of English writing have done a great deal of researches on composing processes and have established theoretical basis for using the process approach in L2 writing pedagogy. However, language proficiency and competence to write in the L2 is far from satisfactory. Therefore, L2 writing teachers should take into account both strategy development and language skill development when working with students. This paper mainly deals with some problems with English writing by college students, and explores errors made by students in their writing, also criticizes the traditional approaches and absorbs the merits of them. And finally, based on empirical teaching, the author proposes a revision approach, aiming at improving students' writing competence through some strategies of revisions and comments.
　　1.Revision Process
　　Writing is a complex and demanding process (Harris, Schmidt & Graham, 1998). Based on Flower & Hayes' (1980) models of composing, writing involves three major processes: planning, translating and reviewing. Within each major process in the composing model, there are sub-processes involved. The whole composing process works in the context of the writer's task environment and long-term memory. Task environment refers to the problem space that lies outside the writer that will influence his performance, such as the topic, the intended audience and the motivation of the writer. Long-term memory refers to the writer's knowledge of the topic and his belief. Writing process works in a recursive pattern and happens throughout the whole process. （如下页的图）
　　Based on a revision model (Flower & Hayes et al., 1986), reviewing process occurs anytime throughout the writing process and it is initiated with the act of evaluation and strategy selection for remedy. Evaluation sub-process also depends on writer's knowledge and intention to determine the problem representation. Problem representation is the writer's image of the writing task, particularly the mental text constructed in the mind of the writer when he reads or writes the text on paper. Knowledge plays the role of providing information for comprehension and diagnosis, and intention consists of one's goals, plans, criteria and models to set directions for the writing task. In the model of cognitive processes in revision (Flower & Hayes et al., 1986), evaluation sub-process starts when a writer reads for comprehension and at the same time evaluates the text.
　　The writing process is recursive and includes various stages of revision. In integrating revision into the comment process, instructors must consider the relationship between the writing processes. The grading process results in a grade, the final evaluation professors give either to an individual assignment or to a series of assignments that included grades for individual writing assignments within the series. The grade is one part of the grading process, not the focus of the process. Indeed, the grading process extends from the development of a writing assignment to the administration of a final grade. When the grade is abstracted from the grading process, students may be left wondering how a grade was derived, professors may be put in the awkward position of explaining and defending a grade after the fact and evaluation may be severed from the process of writing.
　　Students learn to write by writing. Guidance in the writing process and discussion of the students' own work should be the central means of writing instruction. Students should be encouraged to correct and comment on each other's writing, as well as receiving frequent, prompt, individualized attention from the teacher. Reading what others have written, speaking about one's responses to their writing and listening to the responses of others are important activities in the writing classroom.
　　


　　2.Approaches to Revision
　　2.1 Self-correction
　　Teachers of writing must at some stage or another have experienced the terrible frustration of marking over and over the same mistakes, only to find them recurring not only across the class, but even in the same students in spite of our best efforts in giving the students detailed written and oral feedback. The correcting process is indeed time-consuming and energy-exhausted.Most of the teachers suffer a lot from correcting papers; thus, many of them prefer to correct the compositions by means of circling the mistakes and offering correct answers directly, and then the correcting marks make the paper just like drawing a 'Christmas tree'.
　　It has been widely recognized among ESL writing teachers that it is a difficult task to help learners handle errors in their work. To most teachers, the ultimate goal in teaching writing is self-correction, i.e., to assist learners to monitor themselves on problematic language points and to minimize flaws in grammar, structure and organization. In order to reach the goal of self-correction, language teachers use various methods, particularly "editing," and discussing with individual students or groups on target language points that should deserve students' attention. The second method enables students to consult with the teacher about what kind of help they need most. Both methods can be used in the classroom context in that the editing method is treated as class explanation and the consulting method as individual or group discussion or consultation.
　　Based on the purpose of self-correction, 40 students were chosen as participants, and an experiment was carried out in Class A. The students were not told that their work would be analyzed. Instead the whole class was told to write a story based on the picture, as a writing exercise like other written composition exercises in class. The intention was to make everything look normal so that the writing job would not appear any different from other in-class
　　For ease of control, the length of the story was fixed at 150-200 words and the duration of the exercise was one class period of 50 minutes. The first writing task took place in the first week. Reference materials such as dictionaries were not allowed when writing, and not to consult each other or the teacher for assistance. Ten minutes before time, the class was told to proofread what they had written before handing it in. From the set of descriptions produced, 21 were chosen for analysis.
　　Sample 1 (The first self-correction exercise)
　　The objective of the first marking was to pick out grammatical errors and to see whether the students could correct them. Underlining was thus used as the major indicator for errors. With cases involving a large unclear area, square brackets were used and the word 'Rewrite' was put on top. When a word was omitted, the symbol ' A ' was used, and for an omitted punctuation mark, the symbol ' A ', with the abbreviation 'punc' on top.
　　2.2 Peer Reading
　　Generally Peer reading is a technique in which students read drafts of their fellow students' essays in order to identify the writing's strengths and weaknesses, and then suggests strategies for revising it. Peer-review happens with all types of writing, at any stage of the process, and with all levels of writers. For beginning ESL students, informal peer-review sessions usually consist of a group of three or four students reading or listening to a peer's draft and commenting on what they found most interesting, what they wanted to know more about, where they are confused, and so on-the types of response that naturally emerge from a discussion of a writer's ideas. The writers then use these responses to decide how to revise their writing. At more advanced levels of instruction, students can use worksheets to answer questions concerning the draft's thesis, unity, development, focus, and so on-whatever the teacher wants to emphasize for a peer's draft, they then discuss with their peer the suggestions they made for revision (Berg, 1999).
　　As ESL composition researches have indicated, the peer review has the potential to be a powerful learning tool. Mittan (1989) has written that peer reviews achieve the following: provide students with an authentic audience; increase students' motivation for writing; help students learn to read critically their own writing. Peer response is very helpful in fostering students' confidence and cooperative spirit. More importantly, an easy atmosphere can be established in the peer response situation, which can enhance the writer's involvement in the writing process. In this way, it strengthens the idea that writing is a process of communicating to an authentic audience.
　　By reflecting upon their own writing, and through conferences with peers and the teacher, students get constructive feedback and support that help to shape their writing in this stage. After the first draft is written, students receive their first form of feedback-from peers. Students can gain a greater sense of audience with several readers. The reader learns more about writing through critically reading other's papers. Once students have received feedback from their peers, they revise their papers and write a second draft. After the second draft, feedback is given in the form of conferences. The teacher focuses mainly on content concerns in the conference period. After the students receive feedback from the conferences, they write their third draft-their product, on which the teacher will provide written feedback. As learners get feedback in various ways from the environment, they begin to understand how message must be varied, how to explain things to certain people, and even how to cling to what is important. In order to revise the draft for content and clarity of meaning, students will reorganize and sequence relevant ideas, and add or delete details as they strive to make their meaning clear. Revisions can take place to words, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole piece. The following peer reading activity shows how students peer read each other's assignment:
　　2.3 Computer-Assisted Checking
　　Nowadays, in the era of information, the computer has played an important role in education and provides broad prospects in language teaching. In the language education field, Computer-aided language learning has in the last 30 years marched from behaviorist CALL to communicative CALL and to today's Integrative CALL (Newman 1984). The history of CALL suggests that the computer can serve a variety of uses for language teaching. It can be a tutor for language drills or skills practice; a stimulus for discussion and interaction; or a tool for writing and research. With the advent of the Internet, the computer can also be a medium of global communication and a source of boundless authentic materials. Many articles and researches on CALL have suggested that CALL have favorable potentialities. First, the computer has created a more authentic learning environment. Second, the word processor facilitates writing and editing (Kenning, 1990). Third, in respect of the teacher-student relations, students have a great control over their learning while the teachers are a kind of facilitator. Fourth, language learning is not limited in usage learning but involves authentic communication. CALL provides learners with plentiful opportunities to engage in meaningful discourse, the technology is seen as fostering authentic communication. Therefore, in a computer assisted writing environment, learners freely write down their feelings and thoughts around a topic chosen by themselves for their own interests.
　　As a tool for practice in writing, the word processor's usefulness is unparalleled. Writing researchers have long advised that the key to fluent writing is to write as much as possible. The key to exact writing is to revise repeatedly.
　　Newman discusses two important issues: the first is the relationship of recent research on learning to write to word processing. Newman says writing improves more "by experimenting with many aspects of the process at the same time" than by mastering separate skills and blending them. Word processing allows rapid alteration and manipulation of the text, helping writers sustain the mental images they are trying to capture while experimenting with language. The search/replace capability encourages synonym substitution, and the immediate access to a clean copy stimulates further language play.
　　Newman's second point is that there is a difference between using computers for drill and practice and using them for word processing. With drill and practice software, the computer is in charge--this software tells the user what to do and controls what is learned. With word processing, however, it is the learner who exerts control both in using the computer and learning to write.
　　The word processor was designed for revising and manipulating language. For inexperienced writers (who tend to make corrections at the word level), proofreading is easier on the computer. As writers become more experienced, they tend to make more complex changes. These reorganization changes involve moving sentences and paragraphs around, reorganizing whole sections of articles, inserting new materials, and discarding writing that no longer fits or serves.
　　Even a beginner can use the delete, strikeover, and insert functions to make simple changes. Later, with a brief period of practice, more complex changes, such as changing the order of the sections in a paper or adding passages written in another draft, can be made.
　　Ideally, free writing also can be done at the computer. This would encourage students to engage in learning and self-discovery rather than to focus upon the mechanics of exact writing. The word processor can release the writer from restraints that inhibit the free flow of words and ideas. Students can feel free to take risks in their writing because they see that they can always change their minds.
　　The word processor is very popular with students at the present time. However, it has its limitations, when students are frustrated with diction of words, arrangements of paragraphs, contents and so on, the word processor may not offer prompt and correct guidance.
　　2.4 Teacher Correction
　　Research (Mahili, 1994) has found that when responding to student writing, some teachers tend to impose themselves as authorities and make comments reflecting the application of an ideal standard rather than having a set of criteria for marking. Teachers are mostly preoccupied with language-specific error, accuracy and correctness resembling in the way the preoccupation of the inexperienced EFL writer (Raimes, 1983).
　　


　　According to a survey report from Class A and Class B, the most interesting result is that the percentage of students who answer "yes" has been much greater than those who answer "No", and which shows that a great number of students rely on teacher's correction.
　　The most important implication of this survey is that something should be done to rectify the opposing expectations of teachers and students about how errors should be handled. Teachers may think they are doing the right thing by not correcting immediately and frequently, but students may assume their teachers don't know English well enough to give appropriate feedback and, even worse, that their teachers are unprofessional and don't care how well they learn English.
　　The reasons given for why teachers should correct every error and why teachers shouldn't are also similar. The most frequent reason given for not wanting correction was the negative impact of correction on students' confidence and motivation. The most frequent reason given for wanting correction was the importance of learning to speak English correctly.
　　There are several steps we can take to correct this situation of differing expectations. First, we must establish clear objectives in our lesson plans. Next, we can discuss the learning process with our students. Finally, we should employ alternative activities that demonstrate other ways of giving feedback besides immediate correction by the teacher.
　　The following samples of teacher's correction may demonstrate some improvement after a series of revision:
　　3.Teachers' Role in the Process of Revision
　　3.1 Teachers as Diagnosticians
　　Cohen (1998:98) believes, first of all, teachers can assume the role of diagnosticians: by teacher-student interaction and conference, by peer conference to identify the writer's current writing and learning knowledge and strategies, to make the writers more aware of them so as to improve the utilization of strategies and knowledge.
　　The development of writing competence will vary between different groups of learners because they are at different stages of their writing development. Learners who know a lot about the production of a particular genre, and are skilled in it, may need little specific input. Some groups of learners will have a good awareness of the how the potential audience may constrain what is written. Other groups may lack knowledge of what language is appropriate to a particular audience. In this case, the learners need some kind of input in terms of, say, the language appropriate to a particular audience, or the skill in deciding whom the potential audience may be. What input is needed depends on the particular group of learners. As diagnosticians, they can heighten writer's awareness as to how they can write best. Ideally, the diagnoses, is ultimately arrived at by the writers themselves; the teachers serve as catalysts in getting the process writing.
　　3.2 Teachers as Coaches
　　In the coach role, Cohen (1998) thinks that teachers work with individual writers to develop their writing strategies and knowledge. In this case, rather than supplying them with practicing and training, teachers are coaching them in areas in which they have been trained and or in areas where coaching alone could enhance either their awareness of possibly useful strategies for the given task.
　　For example, the individuals are all familiar with the strategies of planning, evaluating and revising; also it is necessary for them to use the strategies when writing. However, instead of focusing on the meaning-related aspect of composition, they make in their efforts in the mechanic consideration. So the teacher should not provide new strategies, but coach the used one on 'high' levels. In this role, teachers provide guidance in all areas concerning to the writers, whether through periodic conference, or teacher-student interactions in class.
　　Many students are intimidated by having their writing evaluated because they've so often encountered evaluators who assume the role of a judge. Students should be encouraged to take risks in their writing, such as breaking free from the five-paragraph model and trying new approaches, if they come to trust their teachers as a coach. A coach recognizes that there are more and less effective ways to accomplish a task, but instead of simply docking a student who chooses a less effective approach, a coach will guide that student toward a better alternative.
　　In a word, teachers should function like an indulgent parent. While a parent might applaud from the stands, providing encouragement without direction, a good coach challenges students to improve on their strengths and to grow beyond their weaknesses.
　　3.3 Teachers as Coordinators
　　There is another teacher role related to the smooth functioning of the model, Cohen defines that coordinators, whereby teachers oversee the writer's individual writing program-supporting changes in direction as necessary, allowing a fluid syllabus with the appropriate degree of structure in it. This may be a large -scale shift for teachers, since many focuses on the coordinating the teaching, not coordinating the learning to write. The role needs to be built on a partnership between the teacher and the writers. Then through dialog journalizing and conferencing, it is possible for the teacher as coordinator to suggest some corrections to so that the students could develop their writing competence. When it come to the responses of the teacher, which means the teacher had better to use friendly way to criticize, to comment on the learners' task.
　　In the revision process, self-correction is the ultimate goal in the revision process in which students are encouraged to diagnose mistakes and correct them by themselves. Also it builds students' confidence and courage. Peer reading is another efficient approach to revision, and it is very popular with students. With the development of science and society, computer-assistance in writing is more and more important and acceptable. For all this, teacher's help is of great importance and indispensable. Many students still need teacher's help, guidance, and instructions in the process of writing. The manner in which teachers correct students plays a vital role in whether students become confidant in their usage or become intimidated. Correcting students as a group, in correction sessions, at the end of activities, or letting them correct their own mistakes all help in encouraging students to use English rather than to worry about making too many mistakes.
　　Teachers of English writing all want their students to be able to think logically and to write good composition. They also want them to be able to use language to explore, to express and to communicate clearly. What teachers do in the classroom to achieve those goals depends on their individual expertise, taste, and outlook on students' knowledge, abilities, and goals; and on the context in which teachers are teaching. Therefore, it cannot reasonably be expected that a certain teaching approach will answer all the questions or solve all the problems arise in any writing classroom. Therefore, teachers of writing must rectify their teaching according to students' levels, goals, and taste.
　　Conclusion
　　A revision approach to teaching writing incorporates the insights of product, process, and the length approaches. In this approach, writing is regarded as a recursive process that includes three main stages-prewriting, composing/drafting and revising. Revision needs to take place, and is expected and desired by students. According to a series of investigations and surveys in this paper, the students who actively take part in the revision process and who accept teacher's comments produce superior papers, and make great progress in their writing.
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