essay revision plan

Revising Drafts

Rewriting is the essence of writing well—where the game is won or lost. —William Zinsser

What this handout is about

This handout will motivate you to revise your drafts and give you strategies to revise effectively.

What does it mean to revise?

Revision literally means to “see again,” to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose.

But I thought revision was just fixing the commas and spelling

Nope. That’s called proofreading. It’s an important step before turning your paper in, but if your ideas are predictable, your thesis is weak, and your organization is a mess, then proofreading will just be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. When you finish revising, that’s the time to proofread. For more information on the subject, see our handout on proofreading .

How about if I just reword things: look for better words, avoid repetition, etc.? Is that revision?

Well, that’s a part of revision called editing. It’s another important final step in polishing your work. But if you haven’t thought through your ideas, then rephrasing them won’t make any difference.

Why is revision important?

Writing is a process of discovery, and you don’t always produce your best stuff when you first get started. So revision is a chance for you to look critically at what you have written to see:

• if it’s really worth saying,
• if it says what you wanted to say, and
• if a reader will understand what you’re saying.

The process

What steps should i use when i begin to revise.

Here are several things to do. But don’t try them all at one time. Instead, focus on two or three main areas during each revision session:

• Wait awhile after you’ve finished a draft before looking at it again. The Roman poet Horace thought one should wait nine years, but that’s a bit much. A day—a few hours even—will work. When you do return to the draft, be honest with yourself, and don’t be lazy. Ask yourself what you really think about the paper.
• As The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers puts it, “THINK BIG, don’t tinker” (61). At this stage, you should be concerned with the large issues in the paper, not the commas.
• Check the focus of the paper: Is it appropriate to the assignment? Is the topic too big or too narrow? Do you stay on track through the entire paper?
• Think honestly about your thesis: Do you still agree with it? Should it be modified in light of something you discovered as you wrote the paper? Does it make a sophisticated, provocative point, or does it just say what anyone could say if given the same topic? Does your thesis generalize instead of taking a specific position? Should it be changed altogether? For more information visit our handout on thesis statements .
• Think about your purpose in writing: Does your introduction state clearly what you intend to do? Will your aims be clear to your readers?

What are some other steps I should consider in later stages of the revision process?

• Examine the balance within your paper: Are some parts out of proportion with others? Do you spend too much time on one trivial point and neglect a more important point? Do you give lots of detail early on and then let your points get thinner by the end?
• Check that you have kept your promises to your readers: Does your paper follow through on what the thesis promises? Do you support all the claims in your thesis? Are the tone and formality of the language appropriate for your audience?
• Check the organization: Does your paper follow a pattern that makes sense? Do the transitions move your readers smoothly from one point to the next? Do the topic sentences of each paragraph appropriately introduce what that paragraph is about? Would your paper work better if you moved some things around? For more information visit our handout on reorganizing drafts.
• Check your information: Are all your facts accurate? Are any of your statements misleading? Have you provided enough detail to satisfy readers’ curiosity? Have you cited all your information appropriately?
• Check your conclusion: Does the last paragraph tie the paper together smoothly and end on a stimulating note, or does the paper just die a slow, redundant, lame, or abrupt death?

Whoa! I thought I could just revise in a few minutes

Sorry. You may want to start working on your next paper early so that you have plenty of time for revising. That way you can give yourself some time to come back to look at what you’ve written with a fresh pair of eyes. It’s amazing how something that sounded brilliant the moment you wrote it can prove to be less-than-brilliant when you give it a chance to incubate.

But I don’t want to rewrite my whole paper!

Revision doesn’t necessarily mean rewriting the whole paper. Sometimes it means revising the thesis to match what you’ve discovered while writing. 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.

But I work so hard on what I write that I can’t afford to throw any of it away

If you want to be a polished writer, then you will eventually find out that you can’t afford NOT to throw stuff away. 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.

But sometimes I revise as I go

That’s OK. Since writing is a circular process, you don’t do everything in some specific order. 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. The key is still to give yourself enough time to look at the essay as a whole once you’ve finished. Another danger to revising as you go is that you may short-circuit your creativity. If you spend too much time tinkering with what is on the page, you may lose some of what hasn’t yet made it to the page. Here’s a tip: Don’t proofread as you go. You may waste time correcting the commas in a sentence that may end up being cut anyway.

How do I go about the process of revising? Any tips?

• Work from a printed copy; it’s easier on the eyes. Also, problems that seem invisible on the screen somehow tend to show up better on paper.
• Another tip is to read the paper out loud. That’s one way to see how well things flow.
• Remember all those questions listed above? Don’t try to tackle all of them in one draft. Pick a few “agendas” for each draft so that you won’t go mad trying to see, all at once, if you’ve done everything.
• Ask lots of questions and don’t flinch from answering them truthfully. For example, ask if there are opposing viewpoints that you haven’t considered yet.

Whenever I revise, I just make things worse. I do my best work without revising

That’s a common misconception that sometimes arises from fear, sometimes from laziness. 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. Hemingway rewrote the last page of A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times. If you’re still not convinced, re-read some of your old papers. How do they sound now? What would you revise if you had a chance?

What can get in the way of good revision strategies?

Don’t fall in love with what you have written. If you do, you will be hesitant to change it even if you know it’s not great. Start out with a working thesis, and don’t act like you’re married to it. Instead, act like you’re dating it, seeing if you’re compatible, finding out what it’s like from day to day. If a better thesis comes along, let go of the old one. Also, don’t think of revision as just rewording. It is a chance to look at the entire paper, not just isolated words and sentences.

What happens if I find that I no longer agree with my own point?

If you take revision seriously, sometimes the process will lead you to questions you cannot answer, objections or exceptions to your thesis, cases that don’t fit, loose ends or contradictions that just won’t go away. If this happens (and it will if you think long enough), then you have several choices. You could choose to ignore the loose ends and hope your reader doesn’t notice them, but that’s risky. You could change your thesis completely to fit your new understanding of the issue, or you could adjust your thesis slightly to accommodate the new ideas. Or you could simply acknowledge the contradictions and show why your main point still holds up in spite of them. Most readers know there are no easy answers, so they may be annoyed if you give them a thesis and try to claim that it is always true with no exceptions no matter what.

How do I get really good at revising?

The same way you get really good at golf, piano, or a video game—do it often. Take revision seriously, be disciplined, and set high standards for yourself. Here are three more tips:

• The more you produce, the more you can cut.
• The more you can imagine yourself as a reader looking at this for the first time, the easier it will be to spot potential problems.
• The more you demand of yourself in terms of clarity and elegance, the more clear and elegant your writing will be.

How do I revise at the sentence level?

Read your paper out loud, sentence by sentence, and follow Peter Elbow’s advice: “Look for places where you stumble or get lost in the middle of a sentence. These are obvious awkwardness’s that need fixing. Look for places where you get distracted or even bored—where you cannot concentrate. These are places where you probably lost focus or concentration in your writing. Cut through the extra words or vagueness or digression; get back to the energy. Listen even for the tiniest jerk or stumble in your reading, the tiniest lessening of your energy or focus or concentration as you say the words . . . A sentence should be alive” (Writing with Power 135).

Practical advice for ensuring that your sentences are alive:

• Use forceful verbs—replace long verb phrases with a more specific verb. For example, replace “She argues for the importance of the idea” with “She defends the idea.”
• Look for places where you’ve used the same word or phrase twice or more in consecutive sentences and look for alternative ways to say the same thing OR for ways to combine the two sentences.
• Cut as many prepositional phrases as you can without losing your meaning. For instance, the following sentence, “There are several examples of the issue of integrity in Huck Finn,” would be much better this way, “Huck Finn repeatedly addresses the issue of integrity.”
• Check your sentence variety. If more than two sentences in a row start the same way (with a subject followed by a verb, for example), then try using a different sentence pattern.
• Aim for precision in word choice. Don’t settle for the best word you can think of at the moment—use a thesaurus (along with a dictionary) to search for the word that says exactly what you want to say.
• Look for sentences that start with “It is” or “There are” and see if you can revise them to be more active and engaging.
• For more information, please visit our handouts on word choice and style .

How can technology help?

Need some help revising? Take advantage of the revision and versioning features available in modern word processors.

Track your changes. Most word processors and writing tools include a feature that allows you to keep your changes visible until you’re ready to accept them. Using “Track Changes” mode in Word or “Suggesting” mode in Google Docs, for example, allows you to make changes without committing to them.

Compare drafts. Tools that allow you to compare multiple drafts give you the chance to visually track changes over time. Try “File History” or “Compare Documents” modes in Google Doc, Word, and Scrivener to retrieve old drafts, identify changes you’ve made over time, or help you keep a bigger picture in mind as you revise.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Elbow, Peter. 1998. Writing With Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process . New York: Oxford University Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 2006. Revising Prose , 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

Zinsser, William. 2001. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , 6th ed. New York: Quill.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

An Essay Revision Checklist

Guidelines for Revising a Composition

Maica / Getty Images

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Revision  means looking again at what we have written to see how we can improve it. Some of us start revising as soon as we begin a rough  draft —restructuring and rearranging sentences as we work out our ideas. Then we return to the draft, perhaps several times, to make further revisions.

Revision as Opportunity

Revising is an opportunity to reconsider our topic, our readers, even our purpose for writing . Taking the time to rethink our approach may encourage us to make major changes in the content and structure of our work.

As a general rule, the best time to revise is not right after you've completed a draft (although at times this is unavoidable). Instead, wait a few hours—even a day or two, if possible—in order to gain some distance from your work. This way you'll be less protective of your writing and better prepared to make changes. 

One last bit of advice: read your work aloud when you revise. You may hear problems in your writing that you can't see.

"Never think that what you've written can't be improved. You should always try to make the sentence that much better and make a scene that much clearer. Go over and over the words and reshape them as many times as is needed," (Tracy Chevalier, "Why I Write." The Guardian , 24 Nov. 2006).

Revision Checklist

• Does the essay have a clear and concise main idea? Is this idea made clear to the reader in a thesis statement early in the essay (usually in the introduction )?
• Does the essay have a specific purpose (such as to inform, entertain, evaluate, or persuade)? Have you made this purpose clear to the reader?
• Does the introduction create interest in the topic and make your audience want to read on?
• Is there a clear plan and sense of organization to the essay? Does each paragraph develop logically from the previous one?
• Is each paragraph clearly related to the main idea of the essay? Is there enough information in the essay to support the main idea?
• Is the main point of each paragraph clear? Is each point adequately and clearly defined in a topic sentence and supported with specific details ?
• Are there clear transitions from one paragraph to the next? Have key words and ideas been given proper emphasis in the sentences and paragraphs?
• Are the sentences clear and direct? Can they be understood on the first reading? Are the sentences varied in length and structure? Could any sentences be improved by combining or restructuring them?
• Are the words in the essay clear and precise? Does the essay maintain a consistent tone ?
• Does the essay have an effective conclusion —one that emphasizes the main idea and provides a sense of completeness?

Once you have finished revising your essay, you can turn your attention to the finer details of editing and proofreading your work.

Line Editing Checklist

• Is each sentence  clear and complete ?
• Can any short, choppy sentences be improved by  combining  them?
• Can any long, awkward sentences be improved by breaking them down into shorter units and recombining them?
• Can any wordy sentences be made more  concise ?
• Can any  run-on sentences  be more effectively  coordinated  or  subordinated ?
• Does  each verb agree with its subject ?
• Are all  verb  forms correct and consistent?
• Do  pronouns  refer clearly to the appropriate  nouns ?
• Do all  modifying words and phrases  refer clearly to the words they are intended to modify?
• Is each word  spelled  correctly?
• Is the  punctuation  correct?
• Revision and Editing Checklist for a Narrative Essay
• revision (composition)
• How Do You Edit an Essay?
• An Introduction to Academic Writing
• 6 Steps to Writing the Perfect Personal Essay
• The Difference Between Revising and Editing
• 11 Quick Tips to Improve Your Writing
• Conciseness for Better Composition
• Paragraph Writing
• What Is Expository Writing?
• Self-Evaluation of Essays
• How To Write an Essay
• Development in Composition: Building an Essay
• Revising a Paper
• Make Your Paragraphs Flow to Improve Writing
• Definition and Examples of Analysis in Composition

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

8.4 Revising and Editing

Learning objectives.

• Identify major areas of concern in the draft essay during revising and editing.
• Use peer reviews and editing checklists to assist revising and editing.
• Revise and edit the first draft of your essay and produce a final draft.

Revising and editing are the two tasks you undertake to significantly improve your essay. Both are very important elements of the writing process. You may think that a completed first draft means little improvement is needed. However, even experienced writers need to improve their drafts and rely on peers during revising and editing. You may know that athletes miss catches, fumble balls, or overshoot goals. Dancers forget steps, turn too slowly, or miss beats. For both athletes and dancers, the more they practice, the stronger their performance will become. Web designers seek better images, a more clever design, or a more appealing background for their web pages. Writing has the same capacity to profit from improvement and revision.

Understanding the Purpose of Revising and Editing

Revising and editing allow you to examine two important aspects of your writing separately, so that you can give each task your undivided attention.

• When you revise , you take a second look at your ideas. You might add, cut, move, or change information in order to make your ideas clearer, more accurate, more interesting, or more convincing.
• When you edit , you take a second look at how you expressed your ideas. You add or change words. You fix any problems in grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. You improve your writing style. You make your essay into a polished, mature piece of writing, the end product of your best efforts.

How do you get the best out of your revisions and editing? Here are some strategies that writers have developed to look at their first drafts from a fresh perspective. Try them over the course of this semester; then keep using the ones that bring results.

• Take a break. You are proud of what you wrote, but you might be too close to it to make changes. Set aside your writing for a few hours or even a day until you can look at it objectively.
• Ask someone you trust for feedback and constructive criticism.
• Pretend you are one of your readers. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied? Why?
• Use the resources that your college provides. Find out where your school’s writing lab is located and ask about the assistance they provide online and in person.

Many people hear the words critic , critical , and criticism and pick up only negative vibes that provoke feelings that make them blush, grumble, or shout. However, as a writer and a thinker, you need to learn to be critical of yourself in a positive way and have high expectations for your work. You also need to train your eye and trust your ability to fix what needs fixing. For this, you need to teach yourself where to look.

Creating Unity and Coherence

Following your outline closely offers you a reasonable guarantee that your writing will stay on purpose and not drift away from the controlling idea. However, when writers are rushed, are tired, or cannot find the right words, their writing may become less than they want it to be. Their writing may no longer be clear and concise, and they may be adding information that is not needed to develop the main idea.

When a piece of writing has unity , all the ideas in each paragraph and in the entire essay clearly belong and are arranged in an order that makes logical sense. When the writing has coherence , the ideas flow smoothly. The wording clearly indicates how one idea leads to another within a paragraph and from paragraph to paragraph.

Reading your writing aloud will often help you find problems with unity and coherence. Listen for the clarity and flow of your ideas. Identify places where you find yourself confused, and write a note to yourself about possible fixes.

Creating Unity

Sometimes writers get caught up in the moment and cannot resist a good digression. Even though you might enjoy such detours when you chat with friends, unplanned digressions usually harm a piece of writing.

Mariah stayed close to her outline when she drafted the three body paragraphs of her essay she tentatively titled “Digital Technology: The Newest and the Best at What Price?” But a recent shopping trip for an HDTV upset her enough that she digressed from the main topic of her third paragraph and included comments about the sales staff at the electronics store she visited. When she revised her essay, she deleted the off-topic sentences that affected the unity of the paragraph.

Read the following paragraph twice, the first time without Mariah’s changes, and the second time with them.

Nothing is more confusing to me than choosing among televisions. It confuses lots of people who want a new high-definition digital television (HDTV) with a large screen to watch sports and DVDs on. You could listen to the guys in the electronics store, but word has it they know little more than you do. They want to sell what they have in stock, not what best fits your needs. You face decisions you never had to make with the old, bulky picture-tube televisions. Screen resolution means the number of horizontal scan lines the screen can show. This resolution is often 1080p, or full HD, or 768p. The trouble is that if you have a smaller screen, 32 inches or 37 inches diagonal, you won’t be able to tell the difference with the naked eye. The 1080p televisions cost more, though, so those are what the salespeople want you to buy. They get bigger commissions. The other important decision you face as you walk around the sales floor is whether to get a plasma screen or an LCD screen. Now here the salespeople may finally give you decent info. Plasma flat-panel television screens can be much larger in diameter than their LCD rivals. Plasma screens show truer blacks and can be viewed at a wider angle than current LCD screens. But be careful and tell the salesperson you have budget constraints. Large flat-panel plasma screens are much more expensive than flat-screen LCD models. Don’t let someone make you by more television than you need!

Answer the following two questions about Mariah’s paragraph:

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

• Now start to revise the first draft of the essay you wrote in Section 8 “Writing Your Own First Draft” . Reread it to find any statements that affect the unity of your writing. Decide how best to revise.

When you reread your writing to find revisions to make, look for each type of problem in a separate sweep. Read it straight through once to locate any problems with unity. Read it straight through a second time to find problems with coherence. You may follow this same practice during many stages of the writing process.

Writing at Work

Many companies hire copyeditors and proofreaders to help them produce the cleanest possible final drafts of large writing projects. Copyeditors are responsible for suggesting revisions and style changes; proofreaders check documents for any errors in capitalization, spelling, and punctuation that have crept in. Many times, these tasks are done on a freelance basis, with one freelancer working for a variety of clients.

Creating Coherence

Careful writers use transitions to clarify how the ideas in their sentences and paragraphs are related. These words and phrases help the writing flow smoothly. Adding transitions is not the only way to improve coherence, but they are often useful and give a mature feel to your essays. Table 8.3 “Common Transitional Words and Phrases” groups many common transitions according to their purpose.

Table 8.3 Common Transitional Words and Phrases

After Maria revised for unity, she next examined her paragraph about televisions to check for coherence. She looked for places where she needed to add a transition or perhaps reword the text to make the flow of ideas clear. In the version that follows, she has already deleted the sentences that were off topic.

Many writers make their revisions on a printed copy and then transfer them to the version on-screen. They conventionally use a small arrow called a caret (^) to show where to insert an addition or correction.

1. Answer the following questions about Mariah’s revised paragraph.

2. Now return to the first draft of the essay you wrote in Section 8 “Writing Your Own First Draft” and revise it for coherence. Add transition words and phrases where they are needed, and make any other changes that are needed to improve the flow and connection between ideas.

Being Clear and Concise

Some writers are very methodical and painstaking when they write a first draft. Other writers unleash a lot of words in order to get out all that they feel they need to say. Do either of these composing styles match your style? Or is your composing style somewhere in between? No matter which description best fits you, the first draft of almost every piece of writing, no matter its author, can be made clearer and more concise.

If you have a tendency to write too much, you will need to look for unnecessary words. If you have a tendency to be vague or imprecise in your wording, you will need to find specific words to replace any overly general language.

Identifying Wordiness

Sometimes writers use too many words when fewer words will appeal more to their audience and better fit their purpose. Here are some common examples of wordiness to look for in your draft. Eliminating wordiness helps all readers, because it makes your ideas clear, direct, and straightforward.

Sentences that begin with There is or There are .

Wordy: There are two major experiments that the Biology Department sponsors.

Revised: The Biology Department sponsors two major experiments.

Sentences with unnecessary modifiers.

Wordy: Two extremely famous and well-known consumer advocates spoke eloquently in favor of the proposed important legislation.

Revised: Two well-known consumer advocates spoke in favor of the proposed legislation.

Sentences with deadwood phrases that add little to the meaning. Be judicious when you use phrases such as in terms of , with a mind to , on the subject of , as to whether or not , more or less , as far as…is concerned , and similar expressions. You can usually find a more straightforward way to state your point.

Wordy: As a world leader in the field of green technology, the company plans to focus its efforts in the area of geothermal energy.

A report as to whether or not to use geysers as an energy source is in the process of preparation.

Revised: As a world leader in green technology, the company plans to focus on geothermal energy.

A report about using geysers as an energy source is in preparation.

Sentences in the passive voice or with forms of the verb to be . Sentences with passive-voice verbs often create confusion, because the subject of the sentence does not perform an action. Sentences are clearer when the subject of the sentence performs the action and is followed by a strong verb. Use strong active-voice verbs in place of forms of to be , which can lead to wordiness. Avoid passive voice when you can.

Wordy: It might perhaps be said that using a GPS device is something that is a benefit to drivers who have a poor sense of direction.

Revised: Using a GPS device benefits drivers who have a poor sense of direction.

Sentences with constructions that can be shortened.

Wordy: The e-book reader, which is a recent invention, may become as commonplace as the cell phone.

My over-sixty uncle bought an e-book reader, and his wife bought an e-book reader, too.

Revised: The e-book reader, a recent invention, may become as commonplace as the cell phone.

My over-sixty uncle and his wife both bought e-book readers.

Now return once more to the first draft of the essay you have been revising. Check it for unnecessary words. Try making your sentences as concise as they can be.

Choosing Specific, Appropriate Words

Most college essays should be written in formal English suitable for an academic situation. Follow these principles to be sure that your word choice is appropriate. For more information about word choice, see Chapter 4 “Working with Words: Which Word Is Right?” .

• Avoid slang. Find alternatives to bummer , kewl , and rad .
• Avoid language that is overly casual. Write about “men and women” rather than “girls and guys” unless you are trying to create a specific effect. A formal tone calls for formal language.
• Avoid contractions. Use do not in place of don’t , I am in place of I’m , have not in place of haven’t , and so on. Contractions are considered casual speech.
• Avoid clichés. Overused expressions such as green with envy , face the music , better late than never , and similar expressions are empty of meaning and may not appeal to your audience.
• Be careful when you use words that sound alike but have different meanings. Some examples are allusion/illusion , complement/compliment , council/counsel , concurrent/consecutive , founder/flounder , and historic/historical . When in doubt, check a dictionary.
• Choose words with the connotations you want. Choosing a word for its connotations is as important in formal essay writing as it is in all kinds of writing. Compare the positive connotations of the word proud and the negative connotations of arrogant and conceited .
• Use specific words rather than overly general words. Find synonyms for thing , people , nice , good , bad , interesting , and other vague words. Or use specific details to make your exact meaning clear.

Now read the revisions Mariah made to make her third paragraph clearer and more concise. She has already incorporated the changes she made to improve unity and coherence.

1. Answer the following questions about Mariah’s revised paragraph:

2. Now return once more to your essay in progress. Read carefully for problems with word choice. Be sure that your draft is written in formal language and that your word choice is specific and appropriate.

Completing a Peer Review

After working so closely with a piece of writing, writers often need to step back and ask for a more objective reader. What writers most need is feedback from readers who can respond only to the words on the page. When they are ready, writers show their drafts to someone they respect and who can give an honest response about its strengths and weaknesses.

You, too, can ask a peer to read your draft when it is ready. After evaluating the feedback and assessing what is most helpful, the reader’s feedback will help you when you revise your draft. This process is called peer review .

You can work with a partner in your class and identify specific ways to strengthen each other’s essays. Although you may be uncomfortable sharing your writing at first, remember that each writer is working toward the same goal: a final draft that fits the audience and the purpose. Maintaining a positive attitude when providing feedback will put you and your partner at ease. The box that follows provides a useful framework for the peer review session.

Questions for Peer Review

Title of essay: ____________________________________________

Date: ____________________________________________

Writer’s name: ____________________________________________

Peer reviewer’s name: _________________________________________

• This essay is about____________________________________________.
• Your main points in this essay are____________________________________________.
• What I most liked about this essay is____________________________________________.

These three points struck me as your strongest:

These places in your essay are not clear to me:

a. Where: ____________________________________________

Needs improvement because__________________________________________

b. Where: ____________________________________________

Needs improvement because ____________________________________________

c. Where: ____________________________________________

The one additional change you could make that would improve this essay significantly is ____________________________________________.

One of the reasons why word-processing programs build in a reviewing feature is that workgroups have become a common feature in many businesses. Writing is often collaborative, and the members of a workgroup and their supervisors often critique group members’ work and offer feedback that will lead to a better final product.

Exchange essays with a classmate and complete a peer review of each other’s draft in progress. Remember to give positive feedback and to be courteous and polite in your responses. Focus on providing one positive comment and one question for more information to the author.

Using Feedback Objectively

The purpose of peer feedback is to receive constructive criticism of your essay. Your peer reviewer is your first real audience, and you have the opportunity to learn what confuses and delights a reader so that you can improve your work before sharing the final draft with a wider audience (or your intended audience).

It may not be necessary to incorporate every recommendation your peer reviewer makes. However, if you start to observe a pattern in the responses you receive from peer reviewers, you might want to take that feedback into consideration in future assignments. For example, if you read consistent comments about a need for more research, then you may want to consider including more research in future assignments.

Using Feedback from Multiple Sources

You might get feedback from more than one reader as you share different stages of your revised draft. In this situation, you may receive feedback from readers who do not understand the assignment or who lack your involvement with and enthusiasm for it.

You need to evaluate the responses you receive according to two important criteria:

• Determine if the feedback supports the purpose of the assignment.
• Determine if the suggested revisions are appropriate to the audience.

Then, using these standards, accept or reject revision feedback.

Work with two partners. Go back to Note 8.81 “Exercise 4” in this lesson and compare your responses to Activity A, about Mariah’s paragraph, with your partners’. Recall Mariah’s purpose for writing and her audience. Then, working individually, list where you agree and where you disagree about revision needs.

Editing Your Draft

If you have been incorporating each set of revisions as Mariah has, you have produced multiple drafts of your writing. So far, all your changes have been content changes. Perhaps with the help of peer feedback, you have made sure that you sufficiently supported your ideas. You have checked for problems with unity and coherence. You have examined your essay for word choice, revising to cut unnecessary words and to replace weak wording with specific and appropriate wording.

The next step after revising the content is editing. When you edit, you examine the surface features of your text. You examine your spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation. You also make sure you use the proper format when creating your finished assignment.

Editing often takes time. Budgeting time into the writing process allows you to complete additional edits after revising. Editing and proofreading your writing helps you create a finished work that represents your best efforts. Here are a few more tips to remember about your readers:

• Readers do not notice correct spelling, but they do notice misspellings.
• Readers look past your sentences to get to your ideas—unless the sentences are awkward, poorly constructed, and frustrating to read.
• Readers notice when every sentence has the same rhythm as every other sentence, with no variety.
• Readers do not cheer when you use there , their , and they’re correctly, but they notice when you do not.
• Readers will notice the care with which you handled your assignment and your attention to detail in the delivery of an error-free document..

The first section of this book offers a useful review of grammar, mechanics, and usage. Use it to help you eliminate major errors in your writing and refine your understanding of the conventions of language. Do not hesitate to ask for help, too, from peer tutors in your academic department or in the college’s writing lab. In the meantime, use the checklist to help you edit your writing.

Editing Your Writing

• Are some sentences actually sentence fragments?
• Are some sentences run-on sentences? How can I correct them?
• Do some sentences need conjunctions between independent clauses?
• Does every verb agree with its subject?
• Is every verb in the correct tense?
• Are tense forms, especially for irregular verbs, written correctly?
• Have I used subject, object, and possessive personal pronouns correctly?
• Have I used who and whom correctly?
• Is the antecedent of every pronoun clear?
• Do all personal pronouns agree with their antecedents?
• Have I used the correct comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs?
• Is it clear which word a participial phrase modifies, or is it a dangling modifier?

Sentence Structure

• Are all my sentences simple sentences, or do I vary my sentence structure?
• Have I chosen the best coordinating or subordinating conjunctions to join clauses?
• Have I created long, overpacked sentences that should be shortened for clarity?
• Do I see any mistakes in parallel structure?

Punctuation

• Does every sentence end with the correct end punctuation?
• Can I justify the use of every exclamation point?
• Have I used apostrophes correctly to write all singular and plural possessive forms?
• Have I used quotation marks correctly?

Mechanics and Usage

• Can I find any spelling errors? How can I correct them?
• Have I used capital letters where they are needed?
• Have I written abbreviations, where allowed, correctly?
• Can I find any errors in the use of commonly confused words, such as to / too / two ?

Be careful about relying too much on spelling checkers and grammar checkers. A spelling checker cannot recognize that you meant to write principle but wrote principal instead. A grammar checker often queries constructions that are perfectly correct. The program does not understand your meaning; it makes its check against a general set of formulas that might not apply in each instance. If you use a grammar checker, accept the suggestions that make sense, but consider why the suggestions came up.

Proofreading requires patience; it is very easy to read past a mistake. Set your paper aside for at least a few hours, if not a day or more, so your mind will rest. Some professional proofreaders read a text backward so they can concentrate on spelling and punctuation. Another helpful technique is to slowly read a paper aloud, paying attention to every word, letter, and punctuation mark.

If you need additional proofreading help, ask a reliable friend, a classmate, or a peer tutor to make a final pass on your paper to look for anything you missed.

Remember to use proper format when creating your finished assignment. Sometimes an instructor, a department, or a college will require students to follow specific instructions on titles, margins, page numbers, or the location of the writer’s name. These requirements may be more detailed and rigid for research projects and term papers, which often observe the American Psychological Association (APA) or Modern Language Association (MLA) style guides, especially when citations of sources are included.

To ensure the format is correct and follows any specific instructions, make a final check before you submit an assignment.

With the help of the checklist, edit and proofread your essay.

Key Takeaways

• Revising and editing are the stages of the writing process in which you improve your work before producing a final draft.
• During revising, you add, cut, move, or change information in order to improve content.
• During editing, you take a second look at the words and sentences you used to express your ideas and fix any problems in grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.
• Unity in writing means that all the ideas in each paragraph and in the entire essay clearly belong together and are arranged in an order that makes logical sense.
• Coherence in writing means that the writer’s wording clearly indicates how one idea leads to another within a paragraph and between paragraphs.
• Transitional words and phrases effectively make writing more coherent.
• Writing should be clear and concise, with no unnecessary words.
• Effective formal writing uses specific, appropriate words and avoids slang, contractions, clichés, and overly general words.
• Peer reviews, done properly, can give writers objective feedback about their writing. It is the writer’s responsibility to evaluate the results of peer reviews and incorporate only useful feedback.
• Remember to budget time for careful editing and proofreading. Use all available resources, including editing checklists, peer editing, and your institution’s writing lab, to improve your editing skills.

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Revision practices, hotspotting.

• Glossing for Revision
• Author's Note
• Workshop and Peer Response

Writing Peer Reviews

Strategies for peer review.

This reflective writing activity is predominantly used for revising drafts, but it can be useful in writing and thinking about other texts you read for class—your peers’ and other authors’.

• Choose a draft that you’d like to develop.
• Reread the draft, marking (underline, highlight, star, etc.) places where you think your writing is working. This could be a sentence that expresses a thought-provoking idea, a strong or startling image, a central tension, or a place that could be explored in more detail. These places are the “hot spots” of your draft.
• Copy one of these hot spots onto the top of a clean page; then, put your draft aside. (If you are working on a computer, copy the passage and paste it to a new document). If the passage is long, you can cut it out of the original or fold the draft so only the hot spot shows.
• Now write, using the hot spot as a new first sentence (or paragraph). Write for fifteen to twenty minutes, or as long as you need to develop your ideas. Don’t worry if you “lose” your original idea. You might be in the process of finding a better one.
• Repeat the process as often as feels right. (shoot for 3-4 times)
• Now put your piece back together. You might want to just add the new writing into the piece or substitute it for something you can now delete. You might even take out large sections of the original writing and reorganize the rest around your new writing. Consider how your conception of the “whole” of this draft changes with the new material.
• In your author’s note or writing plan, focus on two things. 1) Write some directions for what you want to do with this writing the next time you work on it. What do you have to change about the text to include the new writing? 2) Reflect upon your revision process. What did you learn about your topic/your text from this process? Did you pursue a tangential idea? Deepen or extend an original idea? Change your perspective on the topic? Realize that you are really interested in another topic altogether?

From UNL Composition Program’s The Writing Teachers’ Sourcebook, 2006

Glossing for Revision Ideas

Read carefully through your draft, glossing each paragraph.

• First determine what the paragraph says. What idea are you trying to get across? In the margins write a paraphrase (the same ideas in different words) for the paragraph. A paraphrase as a part of the glossing activity is a direction-finder, a summary, another way of saying something. What are key words or phrases that help you understand what the paragraph is saying?
• Next, ask yourself how that paragraph functions as a part of your overall piece. What is the paragraph doing? What purpose does it serve? How can you tell?
• Copy your glosses onto another piece of paper. Look at what you’ve got in terms of arrangement or organization. What is happening to the development of ideas? Do your ideas develop in a logical way? Are their other ways to organize your piece that would be more effective? Are there possible directions for this draft to take, places where it isn’t accomplishing what you had hoped? Experiment with rearranging the glosses into different outlines.
• Ask yourself: What difference does it make to the meaning of the text and to potential readers if you arrange ideas differently? How does it change the conceptual framework?
• Write a plan for revision based on what you’ve learned from thinking through various organizational strategies.

Author’s Notes

An Author’s Note gives responders the context they need to have in order to know how to respond to your writing. It should include the following information:

• A statement of the purpose and audience of the text. (E.g.: This is a proposal for a corporate client whom I’m trying to persuade to consider our product.)
• A statement of where the text is in the process of development. (E.g.: first draft, ninth draft, based on an idea I got last night, second half of a draft you’ve already seen.)
• Your own writer’s assessment of the piece. (E.g.: I like this because . . ., I’m worried about this because . . .,I know this part needs work, but I’m not sure, I really like x and want to incorporate more of this idea but don’t know how, etc. . .)
• A sense of the revision strategies you have already tried. (E.g.: I had my roommate read this piece and she suggested these changes. I have tried hotspotting and glossing and they lead to ____. I have tried outlining my paper and I see gaps between my first and second idea but don’t know where to go from here.)
• The kind of response you want, specifically. (E.g.: I am having trouble understanding the process of evolution. Can you point to places where my explanation doesn’t make sense? The first paragraph on page 3 isn’t working for me, what are some strategies I can use to revise? I want to you to look at my overall organization do you understand my main points? I want you to look at my word choice and paragraph structure, specifically on page 1 and 3. etc.)

Author’s Notes are the primary way you, as the writer, establish the kind of response your writing receives. Using Author’s Notes means knowing ahead of time where you are with a piece and what kind of plans you have for it. As you become more accustomed to thinking about your drafts in this way, Author’s Notes become easier to write and more effective reflection and response tools.

Peer Response Groups

All writers get feedback on their writing at some stage in the process. This section offers advice as you give and get feedback in small-group or whole-class formats – or just with a single, trusted reader.

Eventually, you might find that you prefer seeking input at very early stages, when you are still generating ideas. Or, you perhaps you will come to prefer having most of your drafting completed and the text fairly well organized before you look for some feedback. Although we often tend to forget this, it’s also true that we often gain insight into our own writing by reading and responding to others’. It is helpful to think about how a piece of writing is or is not working, whether it’s your own or someone else’s. As you study and assess the way another writer is approaching a project, you might return to your draft with a fresh perspective.

Small Peer Response Groups, Template #2 (For Drafts in Early Stage of Development) We offer here more questions than you could usefully answer in a single peer review session. The idea is that you can pick you and choose–either collectively as a class, or individually as a writer seeking particular kinds of focused response.

• What is the controlling idea of the piece? What makes you think this is the most important idea? How does the writer highlight this idea and build around it?
• Is this idea worth putting “out there”? Why? It is somehow different from what others have been saying? What might it add to the discussion of this subject? What could be the effect(s) of sharing this idea with readers?
• Whom does the piece address? Is this the right readership for this piece? Are these readers best able to address or think about the issues raised? Will they be interested in the piece? Why/why not?
• What other ways are there of thinking about this subject? What has the writer not considered about this subject? What have others been saying about it? How can the writer show that the position in this piece is more appropriate or useful or just plain right than others?
• Does the form seem appropriate for the intended readers, and this idea/purpose? Why or why not? Comment on the expectations readers are likely to bring to this piece because of its form (Example: Readers of pamphlets will expect a readable design and quick, concise chunks of information...)
• How do the different parts of the piece affect you, especially as you imagine yourself as one of the intended readers for the piece? (“As I read the third paragraph, I am frustrated/relieved/ interested/confused...”)
• What would you (again, imagining yourself as an intended reader) like to hear more about? What could you stand hearing less about? Why? Which ideas could be extended or recast? How?
• What assumptions does the text make? Are they fair? Accurate? Do they need to be supported? If so, how? If not, what makes you think that readers will be inclined to accept them?
• Are all of the ideas relevant to one another and to the controlling idea? Is it clear that all of the ideas belong in the same piece? Give an example of how two ideas are either connected or disconnected in the piece.
• Are the sources well chosen for this readership/purpose/message? Are they authoritative but accessible? Does the writer’s use of sources suggest that she/he is knowledgeable about the subject and has something important to add to the discussion? Have you read or heard anything that you think the writer might want to consider?
• What kind of “moves” does the text make (addressing counterarguments, using examples, citing statistics or authorities, etc.)? What kind of appeals (emotional, logical, ethical) are being made here? Are they appropriate to the readers? Which seem most effective? Which least?

Small Peer Response Groups, Template #3 (For Drafts in Later Stage of Development)

• Is the audience clearly indicated in the piece? How? How are readers drawn in and kept reading? Is the form right for these readers? Why/why not?
• Are the purpose and the message (controlling idea) clear in the piece? Do they speak to that audience? Is it clear what the writer wants to audience to do/think/believe after reading this piece?
• What is distinctive about this piece? Does it show creativity? Does it add to the existing conversation about this topic? Explain or give an example.
• Are the “moves” and appeals made in the text appropriate to the audience? How so/not? Are the intended readers likely to find the idea/argument/story compelling/persuasive? Why/why not?
• Is the piece focused? Are there places where the cohesiveness of the piece breaks down, where the focus is lost? Give examples of where ideas are connected or disconnected in the piece.
• Is the piece well organized? Show how/not. Point to specific parts of the text where, for intance, the order of paragraphs works well or doesn’t -- or where sentences build nicely on each other or don’t.
• Is the language appropriate to the audience? Give two examples, either way. Are there grammatical/mechanical problems that need to be addressed? Do you know how to fix them? If not, can you at least point them out? Is the piece well proofread? Are there obvious spelling or typing errors?

Adapted from Chris Gallagher and Amy Lee’s Claiming Writing: Teaching in an Age of Testing (forthcoming, Scholastic Publishers)

Some General Guidelines for Providing Effective Response:

• Respond directly to the writer’s note; be the kind of reader the writer needs.
• Offer honest feedback that is true to your experience of the text, but which respects the writer’s control of the project. Don’t be afraid to say what you really think, but always frame your response in respectful ways. There is a difference between respectfully aggressive readings (which are supportive and generative) and disrespectfully mean-spirited readings (which are discouraging and deadening).
• Be mindful of where the piece is in its development. For instance, don’t closely edit a piece that’s early in the drafting process.
• Give the writer a sense of what you think the piece says, and how you think it works.
• Give the writer a sense of how you experience the piece.
• Ask the writer probing but supportive questions about the text and its subject; aim to keep the writer thinking hard about the nature of her/his task.
• Help the writer imagine potential audiences/purposes for the piece. If the writer knows the audience and purpose for the piece, try to read it with those in mind.
• Aim for both “global” responses that speak to the whole piece and more “local” responses that point to specific places in the text.
• Help the writer see her/his piece from other perspectives.
• Offer the writer a response s/he can handle; don’t overwhelm the writer, but be substantive in your response.
• Offer the writer concrete suggestions for revision – send her or him back to specific places in the text to do some work.
• Above all, aim to send the writer away from the response session excited about her/his project, and confident that s/he knows where to take it next.

Things we want to hear:

• Summarizing/Saying Back—Here is what I see this saying…
• Glossing—Here is a word or phrase that condenses this paragraph or section…
• Responding—As I read this paragraph, I…
• Pointing—What seems most important here is... What seems to be missing here is…
• Extending—You could also apply this to… What would happen if you...
• Encouraging—This section works well for me because…
• Suggesting—If I were you, I would add… You could move that paragraph…
• Soliciting—Could you say more here about...
• Connecting—In my experience, this… That’s like what x says… I saw some research on this…
• Evaluating—This opening is focused, well-developed, catchy…
• Counterarguing—Another way to look at this is…
• Questioning—Why do you say…

Things We Want to Hear Only on Mostly “Finished” Pieces:

• Editing—you need a comma here …

Things We Don’t Want to Hear:

• “I like it.”
• “I hate it.”
• “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
• “How can you actually believe that crap?”
• “This has nothing to do with the paper, but this reminds me of when I . . .”

Since these verbs have different connotations depending on the context in which they are used, you will want to be sure to re-read your sentence and choose the verb that is most appropriate for your intended purpose.

Sentence Patterns

In drafting, we focus so much on getting an idea down on paper or recreating a memory on paper that we often don’t pay attention to how our sentences work or how they are constructed. That’s just fine (good even!) in drafting. In the revising/editing process, however, we shift from considering the theme or argument of our text to analyzing the way our sentences are composed.

Go through a couple paragraphs of your draft and figure out how your sentences are put together by finding the subject and verb of each sentence. Many times we start sentences with the same word over and over (like “I” or “You” or “He/She”) and the verb immediately follows. Once you figure out what your particular patterns are (and this may take awhile—first to find the subjects and verbs and then to see the pattern), then try varying your sentence patterns.

For example, short, quick sentences might be good in an essay that has a fast-paced or suspenseful feel. Long, intricate sentences may be just right for an in-depth reflection. If each sentence has the same subject/verb structure, it might not be clear which sentence carries the most meaning in the paragraph or which ideas are subordinate to or embedded within an idea. Try adding introductory phrases or connecting two sentences. Try varying the sentence style in different parts of your essay. Your main goal is to make your paper appealing, interesting, and rhetorically effective at the sentence level.

Reading for Grammar, Mechanics, and Punctuation Issues

One way to make sure you catch most of the comma issues in your paper is to look at every comma you use. Read your essay just for commas. Every time you see one, stop and make sure you’ve used it specifically and in accordance with the punctuation rules you’re following. This is time-consuming, but it also works.

You can do this for any punctuation and even for point of view and tense. Read for semicolons or apostrophes or colons. Read looking for “you” (if your paper is supposed to be in first person “I”) and change the “you” to first person. Read and stop on every verb to see if they are all in the tense you have chosen for your paper. When doing this kind of editing/revising work, you can do several readings of your essay with a different reading purpose each time.

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Writing Center

How to revise drafts, now the real work begins....

After writing the first draft of an essay, you may think much of your work is done, but actually the real work – revising – is just beginning. The good news is that by this point in the writing process you have gained some perspective and can ask yourself some questions: Did I develop my subject matter appropriately? Did my thesis change or evolve during writing? Did I communicate my ideas effectively and clearly? Would I like to revise, but feel uncertain about how to do it?

Also see the UMN Crookston Writing Center's  Revising and Editing Handout .

How to Revise

First, put your draft aside for a little while.  Time away from your essay will allow for more objective self-evaluation. When you do return to the draft, be honest with yourself; ask yourself what you really think about the paper.

Check the  focus  of the paper.  Is it appropriate to the assignment prompt? Is the topic too big or too narrow? Do you stay on track throughout the entire paper? (At this stage, you should be concerned with the large, content-related issues in the paper, not the grammar and sentence structure).

Get  feedback .  Since you already know what you’re trying to say, you aren’t always the best judge of where your draft is clear or unclear. Let another reader tell you. Then discuss aloud what you were trying to achieve. In articulating for someone else what you meant to argue, you will clarify ideas for yourself.

Think honestly about your thesis.  Do you still agree with it? Should it be modified in light of something you discovered as you wrote the paper? Does it make a sophisticated, provocative point? Or does it just say what anyone could say if given the same topic? Does your thesis generalize instead of taking a specific position? Should it be changed completely?

Examine the  balance  within your paper.  Are some parts out of proportion with others? Do you spend too much time on one trivial point and neglect a more important point? Do you give lots of details early on and then let your points get thinner by the end? Based on what you did in the previous step, restructure your argument: reorder your points and cut anything that’s irrelevant or redundant. You may want to return to your sources for additional supporting evidence.

Now that you know what you’re really arguing, work on your  introduction and conclusion . Make sure to begin your paragraphs with topic sentences, linking the idea(s) in each paragraph to those proposed in the thesis.

Proofread.  Aim for precision and economy in language. Read aloud so you can hear imperfections. (Your ear may pick up what your eye has missed). Note that this step comes LAST. There’s no point in making a sentence grammatically perfect if it’s going to be changed or deleted anyway.

As you revise your own work, keep the following in mind:

Revision means rethinking your thesis. It is unreasonable to expect to come up with the best thesis possible – one that accounts for all aspects of your topic – before beginning a draft, or even during a first draft. The best theses evolve; they are actually produced during the writing process. Successful revision involves bringing your thesis into focus—or changing it altogether.

Revision means making structural changes. Drafting is usually a process of discovering an idea or argument. Your argument will not become clearer if you only tinker with individual sentences. Successful revision involves bringing the strongest ideas to the front of the essay, reordering the main points, and cutting irrelevant sections. It also involves making the argument’s structure visible by strengthening topic sentences and transitions.

Revision takes time. Avoid shortcuts: the reward for sustained effort is an essay that is clearer, more persuasive, and more sophisticated.

Think about your purpose in writing: Does your introduction clearly state what you intend to do? Will your aims be clear to your readers?

Check the organization. Does your paper follow a pattern that makes sense? Doe the transitions move your readers smoothly from one point to the next? Do the topic sentences of each paragraph appropriately introduce what that paragraph is about? Would your paper be work better if you moved some things around?

Check your information. Are all your facts accurate? Are any of our statements misleading? Have you provided enough detail to satisfy readers’ curiosity? Have you cited all your information appropriately?

Revision doesn’t necessarily mean rewriting the whole paper. Sometimes it means revising the thesis to match what you’ve discovered while writing. 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.

Revising Sentences

Read your paper out loud, sentence by sentence, and look for places where you stumble or get lost in the middle of a sentence. These are obvious places that need fixing. Look for places where you get distracted or even bored – where you cannot concentrate. These are places where you probably lost focus or concentration in your writing. Cut through the extra words or vagueness or digression: get back to the energy.

Tips for writing good sentences:

Use forceful verbs – replace long verb phrases with a more specific verb. For example, replace “She argues for the importance of the idea” with ‘she defends the idea.” Also, try to stay in the active voice.

Look for places where you’ve used the same word or phrase twice or more in consecutive sentences and look for alternative ways to say the same thing OR for ways to combine the two sentences.

Cut as many prepositional phrases as you can without losing your meaning. For instance, the sentence “There are several examples of the issue of integrity in  Huck Finn ” would be much better this way: “ Huck Finn  repeated addresses the issue of integrity.”

Check your sentence variety. IF more than two sentences in a row start the same way (with a subject followed by a verb, for example), then try using a different sentence pattern. Also, try to mix simple sentences with compound and compound-complex sentences for variety.

Aim for precision in word choice. Don’t settle for the best word you can think of at the moment—use a thesaurus (along with a dictionary) to search for the word that says exactly what you want to say.

Look for sentences that start with “it is” or “there are” and see if you can revise them to be more active and engaging.

By Jocelyn Rolling, English Instructor Last edited October 2016 by Allison Haas, M.A.

Writing Studio

What is revision.

In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: Revision handout PDF Return to Writing Studio Handouts

Revision is not merely proofreading or editing an essay. Proofreading involves making minor changes, such as putting a comma here, changing a word there, deleting part of a sentence, and so on. Revision, on the other hand, involves making more substantial changes.

Literally, it means re-seeing what you have written in order to re-examine (and possibly change and develop) what you have said or how you have said it. One might revise the argument, organization, style, or tone of one’s paper.

Below you’ll find some helpful activities to help you begin to think through and plan out revisions.

Revision Strategies

Memory draft.

Set aside what you’ve written and rewrite your essay from memory. Compare the draft of your paper to your memory draft. Does your original draft clearly reflect what you want to argue? Do you need to modify the thesis? Should you reorganize parts of your paper?

This technique helps point out what you think you are doing in comparison to what you are actually doing in a piece of writing.

Reverse Outline

Some writers find it helpful to make an outline before writing. A reverse outline, which one makes after writing a draft, can help you determine whether your paper should be reorganized. To make a reverse outline and use it to revise your paper: Read through your paper, making notes in the margins about the main point of each paragraph.

Create your reverse outline by writing those notes down on a separate piece of paper. Use your outline to do three things:

• See whether each paragraph plays a role in supporting your thesis.
• Look for unnecessary repetition of ideas.
• Compare your reverse outline with your draft to see whether the sentences in each paragraph are related to the main point of that paragraph, per the reverse outline. This technique is helpful in reconsidering the organization and coherence of an essay. By figuring out what each paragraph contributes to your paper, you will be able to see where each fits best within it.

Anatomy of a Paragraph

Select different colored highlighters to represent the different elements that should be found in an argumentative essay. Make a key somewhere on the first page, noting what each color represents. You might consider attributing a color to thesis, argumentative topic sentence, evidence, analysis, and fluffy flimflam. Now, color code your essay. When you’re finished, diagnose what you see, paying attention to where you’ve placed your topic sentences, whether you’re using enough evidence, and whether you could expand or streamline your analysis.

This strategy is helpful for visual learners and authors who feel overwhelmed by the length of their draft or scope of their revision project. It also helps to illustrate the organization and development of an argument.

Unpacking an Idea

Select a certain paragraph in your essay and try to explain in more detail how the concepts or ideas fit together. Unpack the evidence for your claims by showing how it supports your topic sentence, main idea, or thesis.

This technique will help you more deliberately explain the steps in your reasoning and point out where any gaps may have occurred within it. It will help you establish how these reasons, in turn, lead to your conclusions.

Exploding a Moment

Select a certain paragraph or section from your essay and write new essays or paragraphs from that section. Through this technique, you might discover new ideas—or new connections between ideas—that you’ll want to emphasize in your paper or in a new paper in the future.

3×5 Note Card

Describe each paragraph of your draft on a separate note card. On one side of the note card, write the topic sentence; on the other, list the evidence you use to back up your topic sentence. Next, evaluate how each paragraph fits into your thesis statement.

This technique will help you look at a draft on the paragraph-level.

Writing Between the Lines

Add information between sentences and paragraphs to clarify concepts and ideas that need further explanation.

This technique helps the writer to be aware of complex concepts and to determine what needs additional explanation.

This technique helps you look at your subject from six different points of view (imagine the 6 sides of a cube and you get the idea).

Take the topic of your paper (or your thesis) and proceed through the following six steps:

• Describe it.
• Compare it.
• Associate it with something else you know.
• Analyze it (meaning break it into parts).
• Apply it to a situation with which you are familiar.
• Argue for or against it.

Write a paragraph, page, or more about each of the six points of view on your subject.

Talk Your Paper

Tell a friend what your paper is about. Pay attention to your explanation. Are all of the ideas you describe actually in the paper? Where did you start in explaining your ideas? Does your paper match your description? Can the listener easily find all of the ideas you mention in your description?

This technique helps match up verbal explanations to written explanations. Which presents your ideas most clearly, accurately, and effectively?

Ask Someone to Read Your Paper Out Loud for You

Ask a friend to read your draft out loud to you. What do you hear? Where does your reader stumble, sound confused, or have questions? Did your reader ever get lost in your text? Did your ideas flow in a logical order and progress from paragraph to paragraph? Did the reader need more information at any point?

This technique helps a writer gain perspective on an essay by hearing first-hand the reaction of a fellow student to it.

Ask Someone without Knowledge of the Course to Read Your Paper

You can tell if your draft works by sharing it with someone unfamiliar with the context. If she can follow your ideas, your professor will be able to as well.

This technique will help you test out the clarity of your paper on those not acquainted with the course material.

Return to the Prompt

This technique may seem obvious, but once you’ve gotten going on an assignment, you may get carried away from what the instructions have asked you to do. Double check the prompt. Have you answered all of the questions (or parts of questions) thoroughly? Is there any part you may have neglected or missed?

This technique will help you keep in mind what the questions are asking and to determine whether you have addressed all of their components effectively.

Last revised: 08/2016 |  Adapted for web delivery: 03/2021

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Table of Contents

Ai, ethics & human agency, collaboration, information literacy, writing process, working through revision: rethink, revise, reflect.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by Megan McIntyre - University of Arkansas

Revision is what happens after you’ve written something; this might mean you have a full draft or a paragraph or two. It’s an opportunity for you to revisit your work, rethink your approach, and make changes to your text so that your work better fits the task you were given or your goals for writing in the first place. In what follows, I lay out some definitions for revision and then offer five steps that can help you revise your work in thoughtful but manageable ways. These steps are most helpful when you have a section or the full piece drafted but can also be helpful at most any step of the writing process.

Revision is your chance to revisit your work and rethink how you’ve approached the writing situation (whether a writing assignment for a class, an article for your school’s student paper, or a brief document, like a memo, for your job or internship). Revising a draft means reviewing what you’ve already written and (often with the help of feedback from a teacher, supervisor, colleague, or peer) making changes, usually significant, to the text you’ve written. 

As Joseph M. Moxley lays out in his “ Revision: Questions to Consider ,” there are a few key areas where you might make revisions:

• The purpose, focus, or thesis of your text
• The evidence or support you use
• The organization or order of information
• The formatting, style, or layout of your text

Revision might also involve making smaller changes, though that’s often called “ editing ,” which focuses on sentence-level changes to grammar, style, word choice, and/or punctuation. Polished texts tend to undergo both revision and editing at various stages of the writing process.

Five Steps for Making Substantive but Manageable Revisions

Now that we know what revision is, let’s talk about how to do it. As an experienced writer and a long-time writing teacher, I’ve found that there are five key steps for successfully revising my work. First, I solicit feedback. In some classes, feedback may be a required part of the writing process (like when your teacher requires you to submit a draft so that they can offer you suggestions). Even if it’s not, though, you can reach out for feedback from your professors, supervisors, or peers; you might also make an appointment at your university’s writing center. Once I have feedback from trusted sources, I need to interpret that feedback (step two) and translate it into concrete plans for revision (step three). Next (step four), I need to make changes to the text itself. Below, I’ll share some strategies for doing this work, including creating a reverse outline, focusing on the thesis or main idea, reading only for evidence, examining introductions and conclusions, and reading aloud for flow, connection, and clarity of ideas. Finally (step 5), I reflect on the changes I’ve made by revisiting the feedback I received and articulating how my revisions respond to that feedback and improve my work.

Step 1: Ask for Feedback

When feedback is already part of your class , you won’t really have to ask for feedback, but it can still be useful to think about the kind of feedback that you most want: are you struggling with making sure your essay makes a specific point and that point is clear to the reader? If so, this may mean that feedback about your main idea (sometimes called a thesis ) could be helpful. Or would you like feedback about your evidence (the sources you chose, how you used quotations or paraphrased the work you cited, the details you selected, or whether there’s enough support for the claims you make)? Would you like to know how well the reader (whether your professor or a peer) could follow the organization ? Articulating the kind of feedback you want can help your reader focus their attention; it can also help you re-read your own work with a critical eye.

When you want to ask your professor or supervisor for feedback , consider some of the same questions as above, and ask your professor/supervisor directly. The more specific you are about the kind of feedback you want, the easier it will be for your reader to figure out how to help. Be cognizant, though, of the time you’re asking your reader to spend, and give them enough turnaround time to actually give you useful feedback prior to the deadline. For instance, if you want feedback about the organization of a five-page paper, a week may not be enough time, given your professor’s other responsibilities. If, though, you want feedback on a smaller section like your introduction, conclusion, main idea, or a single paragraph in the paper, a week may be enough time. Professors may also have different practices for giving feedback; for example, some may ask you to meet them during office hours to talk through your draft or questions while others may be happy to provide written feedback via email. Always check your syllabus and/or the assignment to see if there’s information about the best way to proceed.

If you decided to reach out for feedback, here’s a template that might be helpful:

Dear Professor [professor’s last name],

My name is [your name], and I’m a student in [name of class]. I was hoping you might have time to give me some feedback on [name of the assignment]. Specifically, I was hoping you would read [part of paper] and give me feedback on my [particular issue; for example, you might ask about use of sources, the organization of the paragraph, or the paragraph’s connection back to the main idea of the text] .

When you visit the writing center : here, too, you might consider asking some of the same questions above: would feedback about your main idea be helpful? Or would you like feedback about your evidence? Would you like to know how well the reader could follow the organization? Many writing center consultations involve reading your paper aloud with the writing consultant, but for longer papers, you may not have time to review the entire text. What part of the paper do you want to focus on first? One other tip: bring the assignment itself and any feedback you’ve already received with you to your writing center appointment. Your consultant can help you review both the assignment and previous feedback and help you make a plan for revision.

Step 2: Interpret Feedback : Once you’ve asked for feedback, you’ll need to (1) figure out what it means, (2) make a plan about how to incorporate the feedback, and (3) make changes to your text. Feedback might do some or all of the following things: tell you how your text is working well, ask questions meant to lead to revision or point out areas that aren’t working, and give you advice for how to make changes to the text. Let’s look at examples of each of these and think about how we might translate those into a to-do list of sorts.

Look for information about what’s already working : generous readers often want writers to know what their text does well, and instructors might begin their feedback by telling students what’s already working. This positive feedback shouldn’t just make us feel good about our work. (Though, we should; writing is hard work!) This positive feedback can also give us a blueprint for how to revise sections that aren’t working as well. Let’s look at an example

Here, the instructor tells the writer that the first sentences of this paragraph “offer a clear, specific idea of what the paragraph will cover.” These kinds of “topic sentences” help readers more easily follow an idea or argument, and this piece of positive feedback means we have a clear idea of how to do that work well, so we might ask ourselves, “how well do the opening sentences of my other paragraphs prepare the reader for the content of the paragraph?”If the answer is “not that well,” consider using the topic sentence your reviewer commented on as a model for revision.

Look for information about what’s not working: Feedback will often also point to places in your text that are not quite working. This may take the form of questions that ask for additional information (e.g., “What evidence do you have to support that?” or “How do you know that?”), express confusion (e.g., “As a reader, I’m not sure I follow the order of information in this paragraph.”), or point to places that need specific revisions or additions (e.g., “This paragraph feels disconnected to me. It needs a transition that connects it to the paragraph before it.”). Each of these questions or comments could lead to a specific revision. For example, if my reader asks, “How do you know that?,” it likely means that I need to add additional evidence, detail, and/or context to make it clear how I came to a particular conclusion. I’ll want to make sure to note these questions as I’m drafting my revision plan in the step below.

Look for advice about how to make changes or which changes to make: Sometimes, like with the last example above (“This paragraph feels disconnected to me. It needs a transition that connects it to the paragraph before it.”), your reader will also tell you what kind of changes to make. In this case, adding a transitional sentence or idea will help solve the problem the reader identifies (the lack of connection between paragraphs and ideas). 

Step 3: Translate Feedback into a Concrete Revision Plan

List changes in order of importance or impact: Once you have gotten feedback and spent some time thinking about what that feedback means, you’ll need to make a plan for addressing the feedback. In a separate document, make a list of the feedback you’ve gotten; then, put it in order according to which piece of feedback might lead to revisions that will have the most significant impact on the draft. Let’s think about an example: on a recent draft of an article I wrote, the reviewers gave me three pieces of feedback:

• Add additional evidence to the first section of the text
• Reorder the paragraphs in the final section so that the sections are better connected to one another
• Use fewer contractions throughout

Now, it might be tempting to do the final thing (“use fewer contractions throughout”) first; after all, this is the easiest and most straightforward piece of feedback to implement. But, is that the best place to start? Probably not. First of all, adding evidence and changing the organization of a section may mean deleting sentences that contain contractions or adding new sentences with contractions. That is to say, taking on the first two pieces of feedback may change my plan for responding to that third piece of feedback. And secondly, if I have a very limited time to make the requested revisions, spending time on those first two pieces of feedback will likely have the greatest impact on my draft. They require more work on my part, but they also lead to more significant and impactful revisions to my text.

Decide if there’s feedback that you disagree with and/or don’t plan to incorporate. All feedback is useful because it helps us as writers understand how readers interpret our work, but just because all feedback is useful doesn’t mean we have to implement every piece of feedback we get. If there are suggestions for revision with which you disagree, it’s important for you to articulate (both to yourself and, if possible, to your professor or supervisor) why you disagree and/or why you aren’t planning to make the suggested changes. Let’s think through an example: when I was in graduate school, I wrote a final paper about teaching for one of my theory classes. Throughout the paper, I used “I.” During peer review, one of my peers commented that the use of “I” undercut my authority and credibility and that I should change everything to third person. I disagreed: I think using “I” in that paper gave me more credibility because it allowed me to make clear that my claims were based both on the sources I was using as evidence and on my own experiences. I didn’t stop using “I,” and when asked by my professor why, I told her exactly what I just wrote here: using “I” was an important part of my approach to this topic, and I thought it enhanced my credibility. Sometimes, feedback asks us to make changes that go against the goals or purposes we have for our writing, and when that happens, it sometimes makes sense to decide against incorporating that feedback. The key is to know why you’re making such a choice and to be able to articulate that reason to others.

Share your plan with your professor/supervisor: At this point in the process (when you’ve received specific feedback but haven’t started making changes to your text) it might be a good idea to send a brief email or have a brief conversation with the person who gave you the assignment to see if your plan for revisions also make sense to them. If there are changes suggested by your readers that you’re not planning to incorporate, this is also a good time to articulate that to your professor and discuss why you don’t plan to make those particular changes. Your professor or supervisor might also have some additional suggestions for how to make changes that could be helpful as you begin to make revisions.

Step 4: Make Changes

In many of the examples above, there are specific, concrete changes that flow naturally from the feedback I received. But sometimes, feedback is more general or applies to a large section of a text. In those cases, you might need some additional strategies for figuring out which specific changes you want to make and how to make those changes. Here are few strategies that might be helpful at this point in the process: 

Create a reverse outline: Creating a reverse outline allows you to see the main ideas of each of your paragraphs and think about the overall organization of your text. To create a reverse outline, you’ll need a full draft of your text. Next to each paragraph, add a word or phrase that conveys the main topic of the paragraph. (If you find yourself wanting to write multiple words/phrases, that’s often an indication that the paragraph in question should be more than one paragraph.) Once you’ve done this for each paragraph, make a list of these words and phrases in order. Are there similar words or phrases in different sections of your text? Do you need to move paragraphs around to make sure similar ideas are close to one another? Does the order of ideas make sense to you? Is there an important idea missing?

Focus on the thesis or main idea: Focusing on your main idea allows you to ensure that the text serves the purpose you intended or makes the argument you intended. Start by highlighting or underlining your main idea. Does the section you underlined adequately capture what you intended your main idea to be? Are there things missing? 

Next, look at each paragraph. Does each of your paragraphs move your reader closer to understanding that main idea? Are there ideas covered by paragraphs or sections that don’t show up in your main idea? If so, should you revise your main idea to represent these ideas? Or, if there are sections that don’t help to advance your readers’ understanding of the main idea, should you remove these sections?

Review your evidence: Each of your paragraphs needs evidence. Different kinds of text use different kinds of evidence. Sometimes, evidence takes the form of quotes, paraphrases, or ideas from scholarly or expert sources. Other times, evidence takes the form of specific details or narratives. Thinking about your purpose for writing (and, if there’s an assignment involved, the specific requirements of the assignment), what kinds of evidence does your text need? Do each of your paragraphs have adequate evidence to support the main idea or purpose of that paragraph?

Examine introductions and conclusions : Introductions and conclusions give writers a chance to clearly communicate their purposes, so it’s always a great idea to review these two sections as you make revisions. Does your introduction help the reader understand both your topic and your purpose for writing about it? Does your conclusion make clear what you wanted your reader to understand? Making changes to introductions and conclusions can make a big difference to your reader’s overall experience of your text.

Step 5: Reflect on the Changes You’ve Made

So now you’re done, right? You’ve solicited feedback, interpreted the comments you received, and made changes to your work. What’s left? The answer is reflection. Reflection asks us to look back on the process that allowed us to compose and revise our texts and think about how that process and the changes we’ve made might help us compose differently in the future.Taking time to reflect allows you to think through how the feedback you received on this piece of writing might change your writing process moving forward. What have you learned about your strengths as a writer? What have you learned about your challenges? What have you learned about how to address those challenges? Answering these questions will allow you to more easily apply what you’ve learned writing this specific document to other writing contexts.

Revisit feedback: Once you’ve made changes to your text, it’s a good idea to return to the feedback and consider if there’s anything in that feedback you haven’t yet responded to. Did the feedback include a suggested revision you decided not to make? Are there additional changes that the feedback encourages? If you’ve chosen not to implement any of the suggested changes, how would you justify that decision?

Articulate how the changes you made address that feedback : Finally, it can be useful to take a few minutes to articulate how the revisions you made address the feedback you received. What changes did you actually make to your text? And for each of those changes, what piece of feedback were you responding to? These notes might be helpful as you work on future drafts of this project and/or future writing projects.

Reflect on (and write a little about) how this process of writing, feedback, and revision might change your process moving forward. This is your chance to take a few notes about how you might approach another writing situation differently because of what you’ve learned about yourself as a writer. What has this process taught you about your strengths? What has it taught you about your challenges? How will you approach those challenges differently based on what you learned here?

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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Steps for Revising Your Paper

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When you have plenty of time to revise, use the time to work on your paper and to take breaks from writing. If you can forget about your draft for a day or two, you may return to it with a fresh outlook. During the revising process, put your writing aside at least twice—once during the first part of the process, when you are reorganizing your work, and once during the second part, when you are polishing and paying attention to details.

Use the following questions to evaluate your drafts. You can use your responses to revise your papers by reorganizing them to make your best points stand out, by adding needed information, by eliminating irrelevant information, and by clarifying sections or sentences.

Find your main point.

What are you trying to say in the paper? In other words, try to summarize your thesis, or main point, and the evidence you are using to support that point. Try to imagine that this paper belongs to someone else. Does the paper have a clear thesis? Do you know what the paper is going to be about?

Identify your readers and your purpose.

What are you trying to do in the paper? In other words, are you trying to argue with the reading, to analyze the reading, to evaluate the reading, to apply the reading to another situation, or to accomplish another goal?

Evaluate your evidence.

Does the body of your paper support your thesis? Do you offer enough evidence to support your claim? If you are using quotations from the text as evidence, did you cite them properly?

Save only the good pieces.

Do all of the ideas relate back to the thesis? Is there anything that doesn't seem to fit? If so, you either need to change your thesis to reflect the idea or cut the idea.

Tighten and clean up your language.

Do all of the ideas in the paper make sense? Are there unclear or confusing ideas or sentences? Read your paper out loud and listen for awkward pauses and unclear ideas. Cut out extra words, vagueness, and misused words.

Visit the Purdue OWL's vidcast on cutting during the revision phase for more help with this task.

Eliminate mistakes in grammar and usage.

Do you see any problems with grammar, punctuation, or spelling? If you think something is wrong, you should make a note of it, even if you don't know how to fix it. You can always talk to a Writing Lab tutor about how to correct errors.

Switch from writer-centered to reader-centered.

Try to detach yourself from what you've written; pretend that you are reviewing someone else's work. What would you say is the most successful part of your paper? Why? How could this part be made even better? What would you say is the least successful part of your paper? Why? How could this part be improved?

3 Steps for Creating an Effective Revision Plan

The most effective first step for revision is to get organised with a solid plan of action. But, how do we go about planning our revision? In this article, we’ll look at three tips for creating an effective yet flexible revision plan such as, scoping your subject, understanding exam requirements, and implementing retrospective revision timetables.

Planning your revision can be an overwhelming task. You might feel the need to delay revision until you have created a timetable, or spend more time carefully crafting the perfect plan rather than starting your revision. Naturally, when planning out your timetable, you might worry about how much time is enough for revision, or how you can cover all your subjects and balance them well. It’s hard to predict what topics we may struggle with and how much time we will have available. In this article, we’ll look at three steps for planning your revision in a way that is both flexible and effective, focusing on the quality of your knowledge, in contrast to the amount of time you spend revising. 

Scope Your Subject

This is the first and most important step of the process! To grasp both the bigger picture and the finer details of your subject, you need to understand the outline by scoping your subject . By identifying the core topics, you can begin to draw connections between the material you’re learning. This is particularly useful when studying a wide variety of modules that may link together, or a large subject that has many interlinked sub-topics. 

A good way to assess your current understanding of the subject outline is to draw up a mindmap, or list from memory - this engages your ability to actively recall information. You can start with the core subject and break it down into subtopics. After, you can use your specification or textbook to flesh out your outline, adding in missed out topics, sub-topics or correcting any mislabelled information. 

This might sound simple but by actively working through your specification, you will begin to understand which topics have the most content, or hold the most importance. You’ll also start to understand how confident you are with the subject’s content; certain topics might have interested you during lectures, while others made no sense. This outline of content can guide your revision process and as we’ll discuss later, this scope of your subject can essentially become your revision timetable. 

A few practical ways to implement scoping your subject include creating a simple bullet pointed list, with indents for subtopics. You can do this in Notion, Word, Google Docs or a spreadsheet and add tick boxes to track your progress. Similarly, you can use this structure to begin organising revision materials. You can create pages or folders in note-taking apps based on each topic and store any resources you’ll need access to. This gives you easy and organised access to material during the revision process, and will help you identify if you need better resources, or will need to create some active recall based revision material, such as question lists or flashcards.

Understand Exam Requirements

For our exam revision to be the most effective, we need to have a good understanding of the assessment method and criteria. How will your knowledge be tested? This can guide the revision techniques you use, and how you make sense of the information. For example:

• For an essay-based exam, your ability to craft a well-written and critical argument under a time constraint, is just as important as understanding and memorising the theoretical concepts.
• Alternatively, for technical subjects, you might find it’s better to spend revision time engaged in problem solving. This would test your ability to apply formulae or concepts from memory, and help you to fill in the gaps when you struggle. 

Likewise, by understanding your assessment method and criteria, you’ll be able to pinpoint what is testable knowledge. Some content might have been given for context, and research examples that were given might need to be replaced with your own examples, to show the breadth of your learning. This way, you can avoid wasting time revising material that is not directly beneficial to your exam method. 

Ideally, the best way to understand your assessment method is to use past papers, and if this is unavailable, perhaps exam feedback from the last examination period. Alternatively, improve your general skills, for example, you might not have any example questions, but you can practise your essay writing skills, or use previous assignments as a guide for effective essay writing. 

The Retrospective Revision Timetable

As we mentioned earlier, one of the most difficult aspects of planning your revision can be organising your time. A fixed timetable can easily start to go off track, and leave you feeling demotivated or overwhelmed. An unexpected event might pop up. You might realise one topic needs more attention than another. This is why a retrospective revision timetable is ideal for getting started with minimal planning, and allows you to revise with flexibility. After scoping your subject, this outline can now become your retrospective revision timetable. This method of planning focuses on what you have achieved, rather than focusing on the future goals of what you hope to achieve. 

For this timetable, you have a list of topics for one particular subject. Each time you revise the topic, you write the date of revision and use colour coding to indicate how well this session went. Preferably, revision sessions should involve some guide of ‘active’ study methods that require you to recall information from memory. This creates a visual representation of how well you understand and remember the topics, making it easier to identify areas of weakness. Ideally, when you start this process, input your list of topics, and identify how confident you currently are, this will highlight areas of importance and provide a starting point.

This method focuses on the quality of your revision, and allows you to work backwards, focusing on what you don’t know. By having a complete overview of your progress, you can switch between topics with ease. For example, if you mark a topic ‘red’, leave some time before going back. Instead, take a break and come back to study a topic that is marked ‘amber’ or ‘green’. This is known as interleaving , and is known for improving your ability to retain information. Be intentional when switching subjects, and careful not to confuse this with multitasking. 

A retrospective timetable can also make it easier to implement spaced repetition . This method is about leaving ‘spaces’ between your revision, and recalling information at various intervals. You aim to recall information just as your brain begins to forget it. These intervals are based on the forgetting curve that highlights how we forget information overtime. As you’re already noting the dates of revision, you can then use the concept of spaced repetition to guide when you should next revise the topic. You can automate this in some way using a spreadsheet or tools like Notion. Alternatively, you can set reminders in your phone once you have revised a topic. 

Finally, while we don’t want to make use of rigid timetables, we can still use time management techniques to implement our retrospective revision timetables. Time blocking can be a good way to ensure you always have time set aside for studying, and these sessions can be guided simply by the colour coded topics on your timetable. Similarly, you can use pomodoro timers, or focus apps to ensure you’re able to have a quality revision session and are engaged in deep work. 

• Scope your subject to understand the structure of the content you’ll be learning, and how familiar you are with it.
• Check your exam methods and assessment criteria to guide your revision, and ensure you’re able to convey your knowledge in an effective and relevant way. 
• Implement a retrospective revision timetable paired with time management techniques, which makes it easier to engage in other study techniques, such as interleaving, spaced repetition and active recall.

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Revision Strategies

View in pdf format.

• Ideas take precedence over style . The first step is to check that the content of the paper is logically sequenced . The paper should walk the reader step by step through your reasoning. Before you worry about making something “sound better,” first make sure that you have presented the best progression of ideas. During the pre-writing phase, it is often helpful to play with the order of your ideas and see what sequence makes the most sense. During revision, revisit your earlier thinking about the order of ideas.
• Changing one idea can affect many ideas. Altering one link in the chain of thought can cause a larger chain reaction than we might expect. It is always important to follow ideas to their logical end – and this is why writers sometimes hate revising. If one thing can change, everything might change. Your final product may bear little resemblance to your first draft. Try to embrace the possibility of restructuring and refinement rather than fear changes. You’ll end up with a stronger paper.
• There is no one, right procedure. Each paper is its own self-contained engine, designed to respond to a specific prompt. Different parts of different papers will malfunction, requiring different attention and different tools. However, making sure you have a logical chain of ideas is the best place to start. And remember that revision takes time, so leave enough time for rethinking and rewriting.

Despite the case-by-case nature of the process, there are a few general guidelines you can follow to quickly identify and solve some of the most common problems needing revision.

Revising the Introduction

A lot of us get into the habit of “tacking on” our introduction and conclusion after writing the body of the paper. After all, the most important part of the introduction is the thesis, and so long as that is clearly articulated, we can worry about the rest of the introduction later. While the thesis is undeniably a key element, that does not mean that the rest of the first paragraph is just a container for the thesis. The rest of the introduction must point toward the thesis, either by introducing relevant information the reader needs to know up front and/or by qualifying the thesis's degree of specificity . The introduction is a sort of zoom lens that tells the reader where the chain of logic in the body will start.

Consider the following introductory paragraph:

In The Rhetoric of Fiction , literary theorist Wayne Booth tries to explain some frustrating dynamics that had gone unaccounted for in literary theory. Reacting to New Critical theory, Booth defends an analytical system that links the narrator’s method of delivery and the thematic content of the story. Chief among these concepts are the “implied author,” a guiding force the audience perceives to be directing the progress of the narrative, and a continuum of narratorial reliability based on the difference between the implied author and the views of the narrator. Some works of literature are almost impossible to judge without examining this relationship, as in Vladimir Nabokov’s The Vane Sisters, where we are presented with an ethically deficient character who seems unaware of his immorality. The relationship between the narrator’s behavior and the audience’s expectations of him in Nabokov’s The Vane Sisters reinforces Wayne Booth’s theory of the necessity of an implied author to direct the reader's judgment.

The first thing to observe here is the thesis. To paraphrase, the idea behind the paragraph is “This paper will restate and validate Wayne Booth’s theory, using Nabokov’s story as an example. Booth is right, and here’s why.” Wayne Booth, however, has already done this job, in a huge book, no less. So why repeat it as the subject of your own paper? After some reconsideration, the writer decides to develop and refine the thesis to examine a slightly different question.

Revised Thesis

The dissonance between the narrator’s apparent cruelty toward Cynthia Vane and the sympathy we develop toward her create an ambiguity in judging the narrator's ethics, one best worked out in light of Wayne Booth’s concepts of the implied author, a continuum of narratorial reliability, and ethical motive behind narrative distance.

The thesis now has a narrower focus, and not only is the idea now more original (This paper will explain a problematic aspect of the Nabokov story, using some of Booth's theoretical concepts), but the relationship between the two halves of the thesis has been reversed . The first thesis promised a proof of the existing theory through a close reading of the story; the second promises a close reading that results from engaging the theory.

But does the rest of the introduction that preceded the original thesis still work for this new one? We can find out by asking the following questions:

• Look at the paragraph in terms of the logical progression of ideas. In the first version, the writer introduces the theory by providing a bit of history, then transitions mid-paragraph into a description of some of the concepts within it, before finally introducing the Nabokov story as the focus of the paper. This could work in introducing the new thesis, but…
• Consider alternative progressions . Because the new thesis already contains a list of concepts more relevant to the conflict in the story, it may be better to use the introduction to give background about the story rather than the theory . The idea chain could begin with introducing Nabokov and giving a bit of context about the relationships in the story – a simple case of substitution. Whatever you decide to do…
• Revisit after revising . Always go back and make sure that the changes you make hold up under logical scrutiny and reflect the goal of the paper once you've completed a revision.

A revised introduction might look like this:

Vladimir Nabokov’s short story, The Vane Sisters , ends with an unusual fictional situation: the narrator being at a loss for words. After several pages of following our protagonist through his unapologetically mean treatment of Cynthia Vane, his final sputtering seems both out-of-character for him and noncommittal for Nabokov. We are left unsure of fundamental facts that impede our understanding of the story – specifically, if this ethically deficient character fails to change by the end, what is the point? Nabokov has crafted an elegant but problematic story where we as readers have far more insight into the narrator's personality than he has himself, leaving it up to us to “finish” the story. The dissonance between the narrator’s apparent cruelty toward Cynthia Vane and the sympathy we develop toward her create an ambiguity in judging the narrator’s ethics, one perhaps best worked out in light of Wayne Booth’s concepts of the implied author, a continuum of narratorial reliability, and ethical motive behind narrative distance.

The writer’s shift from a focus on Booth to a focus on the text requires that the material introducing the thesis accords with the focus of the thesis itself, so that it both forecasts and reinforces the thesis.

Revising Body Paragraphs

Revising body paragraphs needs to take place on two levels . Each paragraph is made up of a series of small ideas that make up a mini-progression, but each paragraph is also part of the overall progression of the paper. When revising, remember that success on one level does not ensure success on the other .

Let's look at an example body paragraph to see how it can be revised:

The narrator of The Vane Sisters is engaging, if cruel. He has a sharp wit and is literarily aware, making his writing intelligent and maddeningly referential. However, he weaponizes this wit against now-deceased Cynthia and suicidal Sybil, characters who ultimately deserve our sympathy. Consider his comic but critical rendering of Sybil's French exam booklet: “that limp notebook […] a kind of passport to a casual Elysium (where pencil points do not snap and a dreamy young beauty with an impeccable complexion winds a lock of her hair on a dreamy forefinger, as she meditates over some celestial test)” (618). He later also derides Cynthia, his professed friend, though not exactly beautiful: “The interval between her thick black eyebrows was always shiny, and shiny too were the fleshy volutes of her nostrils. The coarse texture of her epiderm looked almost masculine, and, in the stark lamplight of her studio, you could see the pores of her thirty-two-year-old face fairly gaping at you" (619). Because Cynthia is ultimately deserving of our sympathy, it is clear that Nabokov wants us to judge his narrator as ethically deficient.

The paragraph seems coherent enough, and the writer has wisely started the paragraph by clarifying a discrepancy in the thesis: what is the nature of the “dissonance” between these two characters? The writer then builds on three links to the initial claim: 1) a claim that the reader should sympathize with the Vane Sisters, 2) examples from the text of the narrator’s poor treatment of them, and 3) a claim about how Nabokov wants us to think of his narrator. The logical chain, however, seems a bit messy.

First, and most obviously, the narrator has not yet mentioned Wayne Booth, though given the function of the paragraph, he may not be necessary. However, we still want promise as readers that he will be relevant somewhat soon. Second, both quotations are somewhat long, and neither is really explained or put to any use to merit the length. Third, the sisters’ deaths, new information, go unqualified while the narrator’s style does. And fourth, we still don’t know why the sisters deserve our sympathy.

Each of these points corresponds to a question you might ask yourself to evaluate body paragraphs:

• Are there any holes or irrelevances in the chain? By breaking your paragraphs down into ideas, you can see if there are holes in the logical chain that force the reader to leap to a conclusion you think you've proven. For example, what are the circumstances of the sisters’ deaths? Will they impact our level of sympathy? Also, Booth’s theories may not be important now, but the writer might want to guarantee that they soon will be. Paragraphs may also contain irrelevant details that take up space that could be used to fill in significant holes. One might, for example, point out the paragraph’s second sentence, and ask, is the commentary about the narrator’s intellectual style integral to the argument of this paragraph?
• Does your chain hold up to counterexamples? By playing devil’s advocate with yourself, you can determine if your ideas hold up or not. Coming up with counterarguments also provides an opportunity to deepen your consideration of a given section of your proof, and may help you develop your argument and increase your paper’s effectiveness. A counterargument for this paragraph is “Maybe Cynthia doesn't deserve our sympathy. How are we to be sure?”
• Do your sources actively support your thinking or just fill space? If you’re going to quote directly from the text, it means that the author has said something so well that paraphrasing it will devalue it, or that there’s a passage you would like to unpack for the reader. Quotations should be a part of your chain of reasoning, like everything else. If they feel separated or detached, you may want to reconsider what you are using them for. In this paragraph: Is anything gained by including the whole quotation instead of just select phrases? In fact, no – the writer merely wants to provide an example of style, but the quotations wind up bringing up more questions than they answer.
• Does the conclusion of the paragraph allow for a natural transition and invoke the thesis? The last couple of sentences in a paragraph should accomplish three different things: conclude the chain of reasoning in the paragraph, refer back to the thesis, and prepare the next step in the larger argument. In this paragraph, the writer concludes effectively. However, there is no mention of Wayne Booth, meaning only a part of the thesis has been invoked, and there is no evident “next step.”

In light of these concerns, how might the paragraph be refocused or revised? First, the writer must decide if it is more important in the first paragraph to establish why we ought to feel sympathy for the Vane sisters rather than comment on the narrator’s style. The writer can spend less time quoting and more time analyzing the relationship of the characters. Narrowing the focus based on the proposed counterargument also allows the writer to conclude with a promise of bringing Booth’s theory into the paper in the next paragraph, after having proven where our sympathy ought to be. This last move ensures not only that the paragraph has a strong internal argument but also that it is positioned in a larger context.

The Conclusion and “Finishing”

When drafting conclusions, the general tendency is to restate the thesis and to try to extend the significance of the argument in some way. After having revised the paper, though, you may find you have a deeper or more interesting understanding of the topic based on a more nuanced thesis. You want your last words to reflect the work you have done in reexamining the rest of the paper, so draw on your new understanding when revising your conclusion. Take the time to reflect on a meaningful moment in your revision. Does something seem newly important? Does the thesis imply something controversial? Are there lingering questions to address? How have my revisions made the topic seem fresh?

Experimenting with these questions, however, may lead you to further redefine the parameters of your paper, thus sending you back into the revision cycle yet again. No draft is ever perfect . Pace yourself by doing some lighter editing in between spurts of revision thinking, and be open to declaring when the work is done. Consider showing your draft to a friend, a classmate, a professor, or a writing tutor for feedback from an objective reader. Remember that you might not have a solution to every problem, so be sure to keep track of frustrating points as you revise to run by another reader.

You alone will be able to gauge when you have finished revising, but in general, you should be able to point to a nuanced and specific thesis , a rigidly structured and well-supported body in the form of a cohesive, logical chain , and a conclusion that highlights an interesting facet of the topic .

by Michael Harwick

Works referenced.

Booth, Wayne. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Nabokov, Vladimir. “The Vane Sisters.” The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov. Ed. Dmitri Nabokov. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

For more information about composing the components of a persuasive essay, you may wish to consult other Writing Center materials, including Introductions and Thesis Statements, Developing Your Thesis , and Conclusions .

The author acknowledges the help of Sharon Williams, Caitlin Fitzsimons ’11, Andrew Peart ’10, and Amy Tannenbaum ’10 for feedback on this document.

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5 Steps to Creating an Effective Exam Revision Plan

Whether you’ve got an exam around the corner or you’ve got a few months to prepare, creating an effective exam revision plan is the very first step you need to take on your journey to kick-butt exam grades.

In this blog post you’ll discover the simple 5-step process I use to plan for my exams. Implement these steps and you’ll feel a lot more confident moving forward in your exam revision.

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1. How long do you have to revise?

The first step to creating an effective exam revision plan is working out how long you actually have to revise.

So work back from your exam date to identify how many weeks there are until the big day, then write this at the top of a piece of paper.

Now it’s no use knowing how many weeks you have left if you don’t also know how busy those weeks already are.

So then note down any remaining studying commitments you have between now and your exam e.g. assignments, tutorials, group projects…etc.

Then, I want you to do this for the rest of your life. Add headings for your other commitments, such as personal, work…etc. Write down any events or responsibilities that will take up your time before your exam.

Now you’re starting to build the picture needed to create your exam revision plan.

2. What do you need to revise?

The second step is to do some exam investigation and find out what your exam is about.

Will it cover everything you’ve learned in the year or module, or will it be focused on specific topics?

You can find this out by asking your tutor, talking to your university, or looking in your module handbook.

Once you’ve got a general idea of what might come up I want you to get specific and create an exam concept map.

Depending on the amount of content you need to revise, take one or a few sheets of paper and create some exam concept mindmaps.

Draw a bubble in the middle and write in it your exam title.

Then using the guidance from your tutor, university or handbook, start mapping out all the topics and concepts you need to revise. Try to dig deep and get specific here so you end up with mindmaps containing individual theories, concepts and models.

You want to create a one-stop resource for you to keep coming back to throughout your revision.

3. What is your current understanding?

The third step to creating a kick-butt exam revision plan is to determine how well you know the concepts already.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of just rereading the stuff you know over and over, because it makes you feel calmer and more prepared.

But it’s important to focus the majority of your revision time on the theories you’re less confident with, so you can improve your understanding and recall in the exam.

Now don’t panic if you feel like you know nothing. If you have an effective, smart revision system in place you WILL be able to learn the concepts needed to pass well.

Completing this step means you’ll know how much time you need to dedicate to revision. You’ll be able to spend less time revising for an exam where you feel confident about most concepts, than for an exam where you’re lacking understanding in a lot of areas.

Take the mindmap or mindmaps you’ve created and identify your confidence level right now for each element.

So if you were given an exam question about a topic, would you feel: - you could give a good answer - you could give some details but you may miss some - you have no idea whatsoever.

Either colour code your mindmaps or create lists so you can see your confidence levels easily and prep for the next stage in creating an exam revision plan.

4. Plan your weeks and days

So you’ve worked out: how long you have to revise; your other commitments; what you need to learn; and how well you know each concept.

Now it’s time to start creating your exam revision plan.

Print out some of my weekly planners and start scheduling revision sessions. Add in your existing work, personal and studying commitments then find spaces to add in time for revision.

It’s important to physically book these sessions in because ‘if it doesn’t get scheduled, it doesn’t get done’.

Then take your concept maps and work out what you want to revise and when. This will help you stay on track and dedicate enough time to each area you need to revise.

Don’t worry about these plans being ‘perfect’ – as things always change. Crises will come up but it’s helpful to start off organised and with an idea of the topics you need to cover each week.

Then, if you want to break it down further you can. At the beginning of each week, split your weekly plan into daily plans and use my study session planner to list your priorities for each day’s revision session.

Complete these 4 steps and you’ll be almost there in creating an effective exam revision plan.

5. The 3 keys to exam revision success

Now I want to share with you some key ideas you need to keep in mind when creating your exam revision plan, but also during your revision.

1. Revise every concept multiple times

The power of revision lies in reviewing each concept multiple times as each review increases your understanding and the amount you’ll be able to recall in your exam. So aim to review every concept once, then go back and focus your time on re-reviewing everything you’re still unsure on.

2. Focus on active learning

Active learning is VITAL for exam success. Passive revision techniques are rereading notes, making posters, creating flashcards of bullet points – anything that doesn’t involve you actively TESTING your knowledge.

Instead you want to focus on active revision techniques: making and taking quizzes, completing practice papers, testing yourself with simple flashcards.

Embrace the discomfort of testing your knowledge so you can actually remember what you learn in your exams…and nab those high grades.

3. Make space in your schedule

After completing step 1 you may realise you haven’t got a lot of ‘free’ time to revise.

Ultimately, you’re going to have to make time if you want to be as prepared as possible for your exam. Look at your schedule and see where you can create space.

Could you take any days off work to boost your revision time?

Could you rearrange any social plans until have your exam, or alter some so they’re shorter or closer to home?

Could your friends or family help out with more housework or with childcare?

Commit to finding some ways to make more space so you can give your exam revision the dedication it deserves.

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Last updated 17 Dec 2019

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