Reading: Revision Strategies After you have completed the first draft of your paper, the next step isrevision*. When you revise your paper, you consider ways in which the organization, content, and...

Reading: Revision Strategies

After you have completed the first draft of your paper, the next step isrevision*. When you revise your paper, you consider ways in which the organization, content, and grammar of your essay could be improved. During the revision phase, you will likely read and reread portions of your essay time and time again. Furthermore, you will likely overhaul entire sections of your paper, returning to the draft phase and then moving on to revise once again.

General Tips for Revision

Before you begin revising your essay, it is helpful to consider the following general tips for revision. These tips can apply to any writing assignment. You will get plenty of practice in making large-scale and small-scale changes to strengthen your writing and clarify your ideas, but this page should help you to create the conditions for embarking on the kind of self-assessment that is part of the revision process.

1. Get some distance from your paper.Set your draft aside for a while, preferably overnight or longer. When you read it again, try to assume your audience's perspective and read your work with fresh eyes.


2. In order to get the distance you need, you will have togive yourself plenty of time to revise.Don't wait until the night before a paper is due to attempt revisions. Instead, try to finish writing your draft at least a few days before the deadline so you have time to re-read and to make the large-scale and small-scale changes that are necessary.


3. Print out a hard copy of your draft.It is often difficult to catch grammar and spelling errors when you read your paper on a computer screen, and it is just as hard to get a good sense of the whole of your paper to see where and how your draft needs re-organizing. Revising a hard copy allows you to spot these problems and to make notations directly on your draft as you read it.


4. Read your paper out loud.It is often easier tohearthe parts of your draft that need clarification or correction than it is toseethem. Reading your paper aloud with a pen or pencil in hand will help you locate the sentence-level changes that need to be made and the places where your writing is confusing or unclear.

Work through each of the tabs below to learn how to commit different stages of revisions.

• 
  Large-Scale revisions
  


• 
  Small-Scale Revisions
  


• 
  Self-Evaluation
  


• 
  Peer Critique
  

Large-Scale Revisions

After you're sure that your argument is addressing the right content to meet your purpose, it's time to undertake large-scale revisions—those revisions that concern the organization of your ideas and filling in evidence and details to support your points.

Some sections and paragraphs may require rewriting at this stage, but you don't need to look for proofreading errors yet. Since you'll be adding, removing, moving, and changing sentences to better emphasize your overall meaning, you don't need to get bogged down into the details of sentence structure or punctuation quite yet.

When you return to your draft, begin by assessing the paper as a whole.

• Is yourthesis statement*clearly stated?


• Do your major points support your thesis statement?


• Are the types of points you need to address to satisfy assignment requirements present?


• Have you summarized opposing viewpoints when appropriate?


• Have you summarized potential objections, if necessary?

Open up your essay draft in a word processing program and highlight the parts of the essay that respond to these requirements. You may even use your word processor's commenting feature to add a comment to state the role of the section in your essay.

If you can't identify a section that serves one of these functions, you should create one and support that section with more details and evidence.

Discussion: Implementing a Revision Strategy (GRADED)

You've come a long way, but there's still some work to be done! Revision is an important step of the writing process, so let's take some time to discuss revision strategies and how we can use them at this stage in the writing process.

Before you begin, please review the discussion rubric below to make sure you fulfill all of the required tasks.

Let's look over the current draft of your paper, and then, answer the following questions:

• First, looking over each section of the draft, in what area do you feel you did particularly well? What made it so strong, and how will you use these strengths in other sections of the draft that may need additional work?


• Second, which sections of your draft do you feel need further improvement? Why do you feel these sections need to be revised? Which peer or instructor feedback will you use during the revision process?

When you're finished, post your initial response to the discussion boards. When responding to two peers, discuss their insights and offer additional tips and support, pulling from the readings and your own experiences as guidance. Remember, as with the peer workshop in Week 4, it's important to be thorough and honest here.

Your response posts should be at least one fully developed paragraph (5-8 sentences) in length.

As with the first discussion, be sure to check back on this forum throughout the week to see what others have posted to your thread, and respond to questions and comments in an engaging manner. These posts will vary in length.

ENG 123 Discussion Rubric

Your active participation in the discussion forums is essential to your overall success this term. Discussion questions are designed to help you make meaningful connections between the course content and the larger concepts and goals of the course. These discussions offer you the opportunity to express your own thoughts, ask questions for clarification, and gain insight from your classmates' responses and instructor's guidance.

Requirements for Discussion Board Assignments

Students are required to post one initial post (1) and to follow up with at least two (2) response posts for each discussion board assignment.

For your initial post (1) you must:

• Compose a post that fully addresses the assignment prompt.


• In Module One, complete the initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.


• In Module Six, complete the initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.


• Take into consideration material such as course content from the current module and previous modules, when appropriate.

For your response posts (2) you must:

• Reply to at least two different classmates outside of your own initial post thread.


• In Module One, complete the two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.


• In Module Six, complete the two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.


• Demonstrate more depth and thought than simply stating that "I agree" or "You are wrong."Guidance is provided for you in each discussion prompt.