The sheer quantity of Ruskin 's redrafting, revision and writing up of fair copies from the beginning of his writing career is remarkable (see Ruskin's methods of note-taking and drafting published work). In the case of his first published book, his revisions reflect the intensity of the period of composition of Modern Painters I. Perhaps the most significant feature of these revisions is their tendency to smooth out the more raw, colloquial, informal, snobbish and sometimes downright silly words and phrases in Ruskin's first attempts. Changes made in manuscript, and between manuscript and printed text, often gain in elegance what they lose in energy. Some of the substantive changes probably reflect the interventions of Ruskin's seniors (see John James Ruskin, Ruskin and Harrison). Ruskin himself wanted to present the work as a formal treatise - a fit publication for 'A Graduate of Oxford'. Ruskin liked listing categories and characteristics, and agonized over their sequence at the drafting stage (e.g. Allen fol. 50r).