Welcome to The Revision Center!
We are excited to build a fair marketplace for writers and expert feedback-providers. Our goal is to help people improve their projects (and knowledge) by providing high-quality feedback and support throughout the revision process.
I’d like to start by paraphrasing Malcolm Knowles, often called the father of adult learning, and someone whose ideals we aspire to emulate. Our goal is for The Revision Center community to have a warm climate. Even though we may never meet, I’d like you to think that I care about you. And I genuinely hope that you improve your important writing projects and get better at your craft in the process.
The Revision Center was created because of my firm belief, after working two decades in the field of adult education, that the best way to improve skills (and learn) is to base future performance on expert feedback from past performances. For any kind of writing, that is revision based on useful feedback. Alas, useful feedback is often not available for many of us.
Our definition of writing is broad and includes anything that starts with a blank page. And it doesn’t have to be a page, it could be an audio-visual lecture or a graphic design portfolio. Typical writing projects include an essay, a marketing plan, a master’s thesis, a series of blog posts, a book proposal, etc. The types of projects are endless, yet many of us have the same need—neutral, timely, specific, actionable feedback from experts.
A classic approach to teaching and learning.
An individualized mentoring approach was common before mass education and is still in practice in complex and competitive fields. For instance, a tennis player or gymnast performs in front of a coach who provides feedback on performance. Athletes take into account their coach’s expert feedback as they prepare, practice, and perform. Similarly, an apprenticeship method occurs in skilled trades such as plumbing or welding. A novice works side-by-side with an expert, who provides specific feedback on performance. Future PhDs have dissertation chairs who provide direct feedback on their work.
Unfortunately, most of us do not know experts who are willing to spend the time necessary to provide useful feedback on our writing projects. Classes and coaches are often not the best approach. Busy adults can’t take classes on everything. Courses where individualized feedback are a possibility tend to be expensive, with no guarantee that the student will receive high-quality feedback. Inexpensive courses rarely include personalized feedback on your projects. Peer feedback is good for some situations but is often wrong or misleading. Power dynamics in higher education or the workplace may complicate the effectiveness of the feedback process. Generally, it is often difficult to ask for, give, or receive feedback.
Lifelong and independent learners need more. Not more expensive courses or programs. And something beyond the cookie-cutter approach of inexpensive courses. Both models are appropriate for many educational situations, but are not enough. There are many effective ways to learn and our model is just one approach. I’m not trying to create a grand theory of adult education or critique other methods but feel strongly that access to expert feedback is a missing component of adult education. Our model is to help writers learn and grow their skills while creating work samples, calling cards, and portfolios that they can be proud of.
Something Different.
Our goal is to create a sustainable educational organization that doesn’t depend on tuition revenue for existence. An organization that enables writers to develop their skills while working on a project that is important to them, within reach of achievement, yet challenging to attain.
So we decided to start with an individual’s important projects and go from there. Reducing everything to a “document” enables all parties to focus on improving the quality of the project. It’s rare in life when all of the stakeholders have the same goals:
Writers/Adult Learners = want their projects to shine and to improve their skills.
Our Experts = want your projects to shine and for you to improve your skills.
The Revision Center = wants your projects to shine and for you to improve your skills.
We feel that increasing access to high-quality feedback and providing a structured revision process will be beneficial to many writers. We will do our best to ensure that the needs of writers and experts guide our actions.
We celebrate expert feedback-providers.
This may sound paradoxical, but the best way to help writers who want feedback is to create a climate and marketplace where expert feedback-providers are celebrated and supported. As long as our experts keep looking out for writers’ needs by providing neutral, timely, specific, and actionable feedback, we’ll support them however we can. If Albert Einstein were alive today and his feedback wasn’t very good, he would not be able to work for us.
Providing useful feedback is an art and a science. Many experts either do not have these skills or do not want to spend time on it. Providing useful feedback on complex projects–no matter how brilliant the expert–requires higher-order cognition, a limited resource for human brains. The time an expert spends on your project is time that they could be spending on their projects.
Having the time, desire, domain expertise, and ability to provide expert feedback on an individual's specific project is a rare commodity. We treasure expert feedback-providers because their work is so valuable to learners and writers. We are small now but plan to continually add experts. If you’re an expert who can provide high-quality feedback, please contact me at: Ed@TheRevisionCenter.com. If you’d like more information about working with The Revision Center, see our blog post for experts.
We support the goals of writers and independent learners.
Many of us lack access to high-quality feedback on our important projects, yet there is an enormous supply of experts who could provide it in a timely, convenient manner for both parties. We aim to keep our fees lower than other marketplaces and to offer more. Anyone who purchases feedback will receive the option to participate in free workshops (and initially, 1:1 coaching) on how to improve their writing projects through revision. Our first offering is a 30-minute live online course titled Receiving and Utilizing your Feedback.
Although our focus is on helping independent learners and writers, all are welcome. A strength of The Revision Center is our narrow focus on providing high-quality feedback. We hope to do this one “job” particularly well and be able to provide expert feedback for any type of writing. Thousands of organizations want to sell us courses, programs, tutoring services, or consulting services yet often all adults want is feedback on their projects.
I have a doctorate in education and am passionate about lifelong and independent learners. Providing access to experts is important but only one way to support them. If you have suggestions about ways we could help you achieve your learning goals, please email me (ed@therevisioncenter.com). We’re new but ready to ramp up quickly. If you have a need for an expert in an area that is not listed or just want to discuss your project needs, shoot me an email or book a free 15-minute consultation on Zoom.
Wishing you the best on your writing projects!
Ed Scuderi, Ed.D.
Founder, The Revision Center
Write better. Improve your skills. Express yourself.