Could you learn to write — or study to spell well — by watching an A.O. Scott article produce , keystroke by keystroke , edit by edit ? James Somers , a developer for Genius , thinks so . To that end , in November — after years of ruminating on the idea and quest for various technical solutions — he developedDraftback , a Google Chrome extension that plays back the writing process . The extension take vantage of the fact that Google Docs already keeps a record of every key stroke in a document ’s history .
This can be maddening if you ’re watching your own spelling mistakes and sentence sales booth , relive thelede that did n’t work and how long it take to think of just the right watchword . But Somers call up this could revolutionize how we teach originative writing . And you do n’t even have to be watching the outgrowth of a Pulitzer Prize - pull ahead film critic forThe New York Times — although Scott is Somers ' first choice .
" We know how to make a violinist better . We sleep with how to make a ewer best . We do not love how to make a author better , " Somers told Chadwick Matlin atFiveThirtyEight . He retrieve having Draftback study a brilliant article is the first step . " I am not going to permit a Panthera tigris go by the shadower until somebody really , really big write something authoritative and then people can break it down , " he says . " Because that ’s going to be an artifact that ’s worthful to every individual high school teacher , gamey school student , college teacher , every literate soul in the human race . "
Of naturally , as Matlin acknowledges , Draftback ca n’t narrate youwhygreat authors made the option they did , but when it come in to replaying his or her own workplace , it could allow editors and teacher to see exactly where a writer went ill-timed , for near or for worse . If you may digest to check it , a Draftback answer of something you compose — it does n’t even have to be from after the app was installed ; the Google Docs archive of your every key stroke dates back indefinitely — could instruct you invaluable lessons about your own process . Or you’re able to just watch Matlin ’s clause come together in torturous start - and - stop progress over at FiveThirtyEight .
