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by richardatlarge·4y ago·view on hn ↗
One very poor practice in higher ed and universities is that people rarely go through an editorial process where they can see how much early drafts can be improved through re-writes. So students write 100 essays, submitted and graded, with not a single polished work. At least that was my experience as a student and teacher
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The idea of draft and edit was taught to me in high school but my high school english teacher was an author so perhaps they had better insight than most english teachers - I can't say since I only had the one teacher and they knew how to write.

I think in university the issue becomes largely one of limited time and effort budget. I was an engineering major and took some economics courses for a minor (which I never got in the end) that involved essay writing. The issue wasn't that I didnt know i could improve it by editing, it's that each piece of homework competes against each other piece of homework for time and attention. The goal is 'how good can I make it in the time I can justify putting towards it'.

I'm sure I made some boneheaded errors in some of my work but I was already doing 'homework triage' and leaving the least valuable but time consuming assignments to when I might be able to get to them.

Writing a work you intend to publish rather than submit to a teacher is a different exercise. It's hard to practice in an environment where you're already racing the clock to get your 4-6 hours of homework out of the way each night.