How to Revise an Article, a personal journey, part 2
After reviewing the reviewers’ comments, I tackled the next step of revision: I re-read the article. This was not as easy a process as I thought.
First, reading the reviewer comments did serve its purpose: I was alienated from the original manuscript. I could not read the article without thinking of what the reviewers had written. This was irritating because some of what they said began to resonate. Pridefully, I did not want to admit they were correct, either in full or in part.
Second, time (in years) and intellectual distance (having worked on several other projects) have untethered me from the argument a little. I can now understand what is confusing. Understandably, some people do not have the luxury of time because they are on the tenure clock or up against a deadline. Thankfully, intellectual distance can be fabricated with household tasks, reading a completely unrelated document, exercise, television, etc. The point is: my own life alienated me from the subject matter.
In reading the manuscript, I figured out that I have two main problem areas: argument and methods. My argument sets up a false dichotomy between one way of looking at literature and another. It is not necessary to pit one against the other. Instead, I can argue for examining the literature my way without throwing another methodology under the bus. This also helps me because it is difficult to make a convincing literary argument that relies on exclusivity. Reviewers will almost certainly clap back that there are multiple methods of interpretation.
I also frame my ideas with a defensive argument about my method. One reviewer did not buy the idea that my method was possible or necessary. The other wanted me to just state the method outright. The latter reviewer makes the most sense to me. I am aware that readers like the first reviewer exist: I will always have to fight for methodologies that take seriously people of color as theorists. However, the second reviewer takes for granted that my methods make sense and just wants a succinct rendering of them.
To be frank, I bought into the second reviewer’s comments for another reason: this is advice I’ve received and given before. I have often been told to “just do it” in my writing. I have often told other writers to “just go for it.” One of my best articles, “’You’re Supposed to be a Tall, Handsome, Fully Grown White Man’: Theorizing Race, Gender, and Disability in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling,” benefited from this advice. So did Black Madness :: Mad Blackness. I wrote it offensively out of frustration and anger at having to explain myself. As a writer, I can get wrapped up in listening to my inner critic who takes on the persona of my most vociferous and vitiating intellectual opponent. That inner critic keeps you locked into defensive mode, rather than interlocutor mode. As I edit, I will allow myself to imagine the article in conversation with others rather than fighting them.
Because I am having difficulty with argument and method, I briefly considered splitting the article into two articles. This is a common concern. You might have two separate pieces if your methods section is actually an argument about methodology. There are certainly articles — and whole books — that argue for a methodology. What is left after the method argument is a separate analysis that could be used to make the argument for a new methodology. Sometimes, it makes sense to split the manuscript in order to push the more urgent point about method.
In my case, the solution will not be to create two separate articles. I can re-orient my argument so that it is pitched as an option rather than an alternative to other reading strategies. I can also refresh my methods section by writing offensively instead of defensively. Once the argument and methods section are better configured, I can reframe the analyses so that they better carry through the ideas of the argument using the method (elsewhere called signposting).
More to come on this revision process. Subscribe to the newsletter!
