How To Revise A College Paper
The best writers revise their work and revise again. Once a professor was asked how students could improve their writing and he said that they could do so by using three words: Revise, revise, and revise.
There is a very big difference between proofreading and revising. Proofreading is a final check of your writing. When proofreading, one can look for grammatical errors, misspelled words and any other general errors. Revising is mainly reworking your piece of writing. It mainly involves reconstructing your sentences and paragraphs, making sure your argument and supporting sentences are clear and clarifying your claim.
Why is revision important?
Writing is a process of discovery, and you do not always produce your best stuff when you first get started. Therefore, revision is a chance for you to look critically at what you have written to see
- Is it really worth saying,
- Does it says what you wanted to say, and
- Will the reader understand what you are saying?
Your main goal when revising is writing to communicate. Here are some guidelines to consider while you revise in order to communicate well:
1. Do not necessarily include everything
2. Include a thesis, which is an answer to a researched question or your position on a debatable topic.
3. Add clear markers or transitions, citation of sources in order to help your readers follow you along the path of your thoughts.
4. Include the main highlights and points from your research that support your thesis.
5. Include evidence and support for each main point, which might be explanations, data, arguments, logical reasoning, and theories from other sources.
6.Include answers to questions like what, who, when, where and what.
7. Ensure that your intended audience can easily understand your results.
A revision gives your writing new life. The first stages includes reorganizing main ideas, going through the draft and supporting ideas so that you audience can understand. Your organization will help put forward your strong points, background, or earlier information. However, as you organize make sure that your information is communicated nicely to your audience. Then, refine your evidence and arguments, descriptions and all details so that they give a sense of the writing being of one piece or a whole. Ensure that one description arises from another or one piece of evidence support the next. Note that even the most experienced writers make errors while revising.
Here are some guides to help you focus on your revision:
- Have other readers looked it over?
- Explain to various people what you have written
- Read more on the topic
- Make an outline or highlight your draft as though it were a reading
- Set it aside for a day or two and then re-read it
- Read aloud to yourself
- Read it backwards
- Create a presentation
- Write a new introduction and conclusion to see if the paper fits the new introduction and the new conclusion
- The final stage or revision is copy editing, or proof reading.
There are three types of revising your writing:
1. Organization
Always ask yourself these questions when starting with the thesis statement
- What is your argument? Read your thesis statement aloud. If you hesitate while reading, it then that means the thesis does not flow properly.
- How long is the thesis statement? If your thesis consists of more than three thoughts, your essay may be a bit vague.
- However, that depends on the length and depth of the essay.Does your thesis provide enough information? Sometimes the thesis can be too vague.
2. Paragraphs
Once your thesis is good to go, you can start looking at your paragraphs as a whole. However, focus on the main idea of each paragraph rather that the sentences.
- Look at your first topic sentence. Read it aloud and make sure it state’s the argument you are planning to make.
- Review your supporting evidence. Do your supporting details support your topic sentence? Does the structure of the paragraph flow properly?
- Consider the order of your paragraphs. Do you think that your third paragraph would make more sense if it were switched with the second paragraph?
- 3. Sentences
After reworking and looking at your thesis and looking at your paragraphs, you can check the sentences. Consider the following when revising the sentences:
- Repetition and variety - Have you repeated any words in the paragraph? What other words might work better? At this point, a dictionary and a thesaurus are your best friends.
- Wordiness – are your sentences confusing? Try to be clear and concise.
- Choppiness – avoid using too many short sentences. This disrupts the floe and makes the writing sound unprofessional. Use transitional words instead to avoid this.
- Informality – the writing should be formal and professional.
How to improve your sentences:
- Use active verbs and write in active voice
- Avoid words such as "Very, so, really, such” and words ending in "ly”
- Vary your sentence structure
These techniques will make revising your essays be a lot easier. You can also ask someone else to read over your essay.
Good Luck!!