Why do we revise

Revising for Substance As you read through your draft, ask yourself the following questions about the substance of your paper: Is your thesis clearly and firmly stated? Do you present your own analysis? Does your work fairly reflect the sources that you consulted? Do you include specific evidence to support your ideas? Is this evidence analyzed and explained? Are there gaps in your logic that need to be corrected? Do you fulfill all of the goals that you set out in the thesis? Have you met all of the instructions included with the assignment?

Revising for Structure As you read, you need to ensure that your essay has a strong structure. Consider all of the questions below: Is there a clear and logical pattern by which you prove your thesis?

Does your introduction give a clear indication of what the paper is about? Is each paragraph unified and developed? Does each paragraph contain a strong, clear topic sentence?

Is each paragraph related to the thesis? You could create a reverse outline. See Creating an Effective Outline. Do you have transitions between paragraphs and between sections? Revising gives you the chance to preview your work on behalf of the eventual reader.

Revision is much more than proofreading, though in the final editing stage it involves some checking of details. Good revision and editing can transform a mediocre first draft into an excellent final paper. Revision may mean changing the shape and reasoning in your paper. It often means adding or deleting sentences and paragraphs, shifting them around, and reshaping them as you go.

Before dealing with details of style and language editing , be sure you have presented ideas that are clear and forceful. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose. For more information on the subject, see our handout on proofreading.

So revision is a chance for you to look critically at what you have written to see:. Here are several things to do.

Instead, focus on two or three main areas during each revision session:. You may want to start working on your next paper early so that you have plenty of time for revising. Sometimes it means coming up with stronger arguments to defend your position, or coming up with more vivid examples to illustrate your points. Sometimes it means shifting the order of your paper to help the reader follow your argument, or to change the emphasis of your points.

Sometimes it means adding or deleting material for balance or emphasis. And then, sadly, sometimes revision does mean trashing your first draft and starting from scratch. Better that than having the teacher trash your final paper.

As writers, we often produce lots of material that needs to be tossed. The idea or metaphor or paragraph that I think is most wonderful and brilliant is often the very thing that confuses my reader or ruins the tone of my piece or interrupts the flow of my argument.

Writers must be willing to sacrifice their favorite bits of writing for the good of the piece as a whole. In order to trim things down, though, you first have to have plenty of material on the page. One trick is not to hinder yourself while you are composing the first draft because the more you produce, the more you will have to work with when cutting time comes.

Sometimes you write something and then tinker with it before moving on. But be warned: there are two potential problems with revising as you go. One is that if you revise only as you go along, you never get to think of the big picture. Another danger to revising as you go is that you may short-circuit your creativity. You may waste time correcting the commas in a sentence that may end up being cut anyway. The truth is, though, that except for those rare moments of inspiration or genius when the perfect ideas expressed in the perfect words in the perfect order flow gracefully and effortlessly from the mind, all experienced writers revise their work.

I wrote six drafts of this handout.