THE MOST IMPORTANT IDEA OF SONDRA PERL

          The process of writing is different for everyone.  We all have developed our method learned from teachers and professors throughout our years of education.  Sondra Perl, an English professor at Lehman College with a Ph.D. from NYU, has spent most of her career in discussion of this development (Ph.D.).  While she has advanced many theories on this procedure the most enduring one would that writing is a “recursive process” (Perl 364). 

            What is the “a recursive process”?  Perl defines it as “that throughout the process of writing, writers return to substrands of the overall process, or subroutines” (Perl 364).  In layman terms you are constantly re-reading and reworking.  Perl breaks this process down into three parts; revision, returning to key words in the topic, and an action she calls the “felt process (Perl 364-65). In order for you to progress forward you must go back throughout the whole module.

            Of the three parts the revision is the most common and familiar to students.  It is drilled into students from the early stages of education that you must constantly revise.   It can be in the form of making corrections as you move from topic to topic all the way to finished project.  For some, the revision process never truly ends, constantly going back and making corrections and adjustments for an eternity. 

            The second part in Perl’s theory on the recursive process is returning to keywords in the topic.  Whatever the topic is about the writer will use a specific word or even theme that they will refer back to throughout the text.  Perl brings out a great point that a writer will go back to the key word whenever they become stuck to get going again (Perl 364).  Going back to the vital points or significant words allow the writer to focus on the main subject matter instead of the paper as a whole.  It allows writers to unburden themselves and clear the mind so they aren’t pre-occupied with different sub-topics.

            The third component in Perl’s idea can be somewhat abstruse.  She describes this point as a “felt sense”(Perl 365).  The term is one she borrowed from Eugene

Gendlin, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, who defined felt sense as “the soft underbelly of thoughts” (Perl 365).  Broken down to simplest terms it means when we write we always go back to what feels right to us.

            The felt sense could be the most problematic of the whole recursive process.  A writer could get himself or herself into a lot of trouble by writing off what feels right to them.  A writer may fight internally about what they feel is the reasoning for choices they make.  Am I making this choice cause it feels right or is it cause of outside forces?  Outside forces could be anything from what your brain tells to thinking this is what the audience really wants to hear. 

            Of the three components that make up Perl’s recursive process, the felt sense is largely incognizance.  A great writer is probably unaware that they are drawing on learned experiences and putting them into words.  That is why it is important that early on a writer has developed basic writings skills that they can rely on instinct

            The recursive process involves steps of going back.  Some of them are literal others are mental.  They all make the writer better at what they do in the end.  Though Sondra Perl has made many contributions to the theory of the process of writing it is this process that stands out as the most important.

WORKS CITED

Perl, Sondra. "Understanding Composing." College Composition and Communication            

            Vol. 31. Ed.4 (1980): 363-69. JSTOR. National Council of Teachers of English.            

            Web.  16 Sept. 2011.

"PhD Program in English: Sondra Perl." The Graduate Center, CUNY. Web.

            18 Sept. 2011.