Revision Strategies

1.  Realize that therole of the writer when drafting is very different from the writer's role whenrevising. While drafting, the writer's focus is on generating content and developing ideas; the writer synthesizes information andcreates text. In contrast, when revising, the writer becomes a critic. He or she must re-see the draft withobjective eyes and be willing to make any changes, additions, or deletions thatare necessary for a stronger paper. Thus, the writer needs to leave time so that his or her mind and eye canbecome more objective between drafting and revising.

2.  Review thespecific requirements of the writing situation and establish a checklist for your revision. Also, be clear aboutthe paper's audience(readers) and the paper's purpose (what you, the writer, hope to accomplish in the paper for youraudience).

3.  Print out a hardcopy of the paper.Carefully read through the entire essay a number of times, looking fordifferent items on different read-throughs. Divide your evaluation by notingthese areas:

A. Globalconcerns/issues

Concentrate on the paper'scontent and its adequate development. Then notice if the structural elements ofthe paper support its content.

B. Sentence-levelconcerns/issues

Look at each sentence, considering strengthening a sentence'smeaning through its structure and diction.

C. Writer'sspecific writing problems

Compile a list of your writing problems and then look for thoseerrors specifically during one read-through.

Keep a chart or list of your writing strengths and problems anduse that as a guide or checklist when evaluating your paper.

4.  Make a revision goals list that helps you concentrate on the mainitems that need revision in the draft. Prioritize the list.

5.  As you read through the hard copy, readit aloud. You need to hearthe words and willoften catch problems or errors when you hear them. You can also benefit fromhearing your paper read aloud by someone else.

6.  Accept that you will probably have morethan one rough draft. However, do not make one or two small changes and thenprint out, perhaps creating a large number of drafts. Try to make significantchanges during one revision effort.

7.  To evaluate a workable structure, especially noting paragraph units, youmight apply the thesis/topic sentence test and/or outline the essay to check the flow of ideas and language. All materialshould be clearly connected and in an appropriate order.

8.  Get others' opinions on your draft. Their job is to offertheir opinions and suggestions for revision, not to actively revise for you.

All final decisions about the paper are yours because this is your paper, a reflection of your thinking and anexample of your writing.

9.  Final stages of revising become editing. Now you look carefully at your writingmechanics such as punctuation and sentence structure and look at wheretransition is needed, etc. This is the ''polishing'' of your paper.

10. Always leave timefor proofreading thefinal copy, especially focusing on typos and words left out or words that don'tbelong in the text.