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Stephanie Bautista

Lissette Escariz

English 101-Section 0206

Summary: The Makers Eye

Donald Murray published The Maker's Eye on October 1973 to discuss how revising

ones writing is crucial to the writing process. Throughout the article, Murray supports his claim

by providing evidence that authors, like Ray Bradbury, edit their work as there is always room

for improvement. Murray claim that students have been taught the wrong way to write, typically

their first draft is their only draft before final paper submission. To support his claim, Murray

cites Peter F Drucker who argues that His first draft is the zero draft. (458) to demonstrate that

the first draft is only the first step in the writing process. The author also explained that after a

draft is created, then more drafts should be made before submitting a final paper.

Murray goes on to argue that students should learn how to properly revise and edit their

work before turning it in. According to Murray, a writers draft should firstly have a reasonable

amount of meaningful information by taking into consideration the papers audience and the

proper development throughout the writing process. Murray also explains that writers take the

most time focusing on the development of their paper re-reading their work , which helps a

writer fix their development. In addition, Murray emphasizes that a piece of writing can always

be modified after re-reading; therefore, writers should distance themselves so they can

properly edit their paper, which means that writers should edit their paper in reasonable time

intervals after not working on it for a few days.

Overall, in The Makers Eye, Murray contends that writing can always be modified, yet

many students do not know how to properly work on their drafts. Thus students should be
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retaught how to write papers to eventually use their makers eye to never be fully satisfied with

their work in order to re-edit their paper as much as they can.

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Work Cited

Murray, Donald M. The Makers Eye. Inventing Arguments: A Rhetoric and Reader For the
University of Marylands Academic Writing Program, Pearson, 2017, 458-461.