Not practicing what I preach.

I am reminded, as I look over the editorial comments on my article and try to revise, that I am a terrible reviser. I know this. But--callow though it makes me--I cannot understand, for an embarrassingly long time, how to change what I've already written. First of all, it takes me forever to write a damned sentence. I'm not casual about them...so they've got to be pretty good by the time they get printed and sent off, right? Such is, I am convinced, my genius.

But then again, this article has been through four torturous major revisions over as many years as I've struggled toward articulating my point clearly. Obviously, my genius sentences didn't nail it the first time. Or the second. Or the third. And now the fourth needs some clarification. So I do know that revision equals increased clarity, and more elegant integration of argumentative points, and general improvement, and all the stuff we try to impress upon our students. But I still fight it, and I'm always the more bruised for the fight.