General Revising and Editing Tips:
It is imperative for students to revise and edit their assignment. Most professional writers spend more time on revising than on writing their first draft. In other words, DO NOT SKIP THIS PROCESS OR TRY TO RACE THROUGH IT!
Give yourself time before doing a revision. Ideally, give yourself 24 hours before editing. At the very least, give yourself an hour break before proofreading. The longer the break you give yourself before editing, the more unfamiliar your assignment will seem, which makes for more effective proofreading. Here are some suggestions for proofreading your writing:
Step 1: Change the font of your assignment. This will help make your paper seem unfamiliar.
Step 2: Print out your draft because most people detect more errors when looking at a hard copy than on a computer screen.
Step 3: Read out loud with a pen in hand. Annotate your text just the way you would with a piece of literature, looking for the strengths and weaknesses of your paper.
Step 4: Go through the 3 phases of Revision: 1) Macro-Scale Revision 2) Micro-Scale Revision and 3) A Final Editing and Proofreading phase.
Step 5: Make the corrections and change your font back to the assigned style.
Macroscale Revision Checklist:
At this stage, do not worry too much about details like word choice, punctuation, etc. - you will deal with these details later. You would not want to spend your time getting the wording of a sentence right only to decide later that the paragraph it is in weakens your argument and needs to be deleted. First, look at the overall picture - the argument, organization, and tone of the paper as a whole. So, at this point, nothing smaller than a paragraph should concern you.
I. Further Develop your Focus and Thesis:
Can your reader immediately identify what the topic of the essay will be - which text(s) and which aspect of the text (language features, character development, etc.) you will analyze?
Have you narrowed the scope of the thesis for your reader? How could it be further narrowed? Be specific!
Does your thesis clearly identify a claim that someone can logically debate?
Has your thinking about the issues evolved while you were writing? If so, how will this change your thesis statement?
Have you answered the question of “So What?” Did you get your reader thinking beyond your paper to understand why your thesis is important to worldly issues?
II. Reorganize your Paper, if Necessary
Does the order of the ideas and paragraphs make immediate sense to you, or does an alternative order suggest itself? Unless instructed otherwise by your teacher, do not be afraid to experiment with the order of your body paragraphs to see if they can be arranged in a better way.
III. Expand your Paper with New Paragraphs or with New Evidence within Existing Paragraphs.
What textual evidence have you used? Is it persuasive or does your evidence contradict your thesis?
Have you successfully integrated quotations, summaries, or paraphrases into your own writing, while acknowledging your source?
IV. Eliminate any Unnecessary, Contradictory, or Distracting Passages.
Does every piece of evidence, every sentence, and every paragraph contribute to the validity of your argument? If not, delete any irrelevant ideas.
V. Clarify Difficult Passages with More Specific Explanations or Evidence.
Have you explained why you are citing a passage? What specific details in the passage support your interpretation? Make sure your reasoning is explicit in your assignment. Never assume a quotation or paraphrase speaks for itself. Always explain the quote or summary.
References
Gardner, J.E., & Diaz, J. (2017). Reading and writing about literature (4th ed.). Macmillan Learning.
Klein, S. (2013, April 1). How to edit your dissertation. The Guardian. News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's global edition | The Guardian
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Higher order concerns (HOCs) and lower order concerns (LOCs). Higher, Lower Order Concerns - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
University of Wisconsin-Madison. (2020). The writer’s handbook. UW-Madison Writer’s Handbook – The Writing Center – UW–Madison (wisc.edu)
Microscale Revision Checklist
Focus on style and clarity. The types of changes you will make at this stage are small-scale versions of the changes you made during the macroscale round of revisions: adding, cutting, reorganizing, and clarifying.
I. Consider your Sentences.
Do you keep the writing interesting by using a variety of sentence types, and sentences of different lengths?
Have you used an occasional rhetorical question to get your readers thinking? If so, make sure you use this device in moderation. In other words, do not have more than two rhetorical questions in an essay because it can become too distracting for your readers.
Does each sentence clearly follow from the last one? Or do you need to reorganize the sentences within a particular paragraph to provide clearer transitions between sentences?
Look at the first and last sentences in each paragraph. Do they provide sufficient transitions from one paragraph to the next?
II. Consider your Word Choice.
Do you constantly use the same words and phrases? If so, could you vary your choices a bit?
If you use any specific academic terms, are you certain that you are using these terms correctly?
Look at the verbs. Are many of them strong and active, or do most sentences rely on dull linking verbs like “is” or “seems”?
References
Gardner, J.E., & Diaz, J. (2017). Reading and writing about literature (4th ed.). Macmillan Learning.
Klein, S. (2013, April 1). How to edit your dissertation. The Guardian. News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's global edition | The Guardian
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Higher order concerns (HOCs) and lower order concerns (LOCs). Higher, Lower Order Concerns - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Improving sentence clarity. Sentence Clarity - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
University of Wisconsin-Madison. (2020). The writer’s handbook. UW-Madison Writer’s Handbook – The Writing Center – UW–Madison (wisc.edu)
Final Editing and Proofreading
Once you have completed phase 1 and 2 of the revision process (macroscale and microscale revision) and are satisfied with both the content and the style, then it’s time for the final editing. This is where you make your assignment perfect!
I. Consider your Spelling
Have you spelled everything correctly? Do NOT rely on your computer’s spell-check function. This only tells you if a word you typed is a word, not if it’s the correct word.
II. Check your Punctuation
Look for things that have caused you trouble in the past. For example, should you use a comma or semi-colon?
Pay special attention to quotations. Does the question mark go inside or outside of the quotation marks? Have you used both opening and closing quotation marks for each quotation?
III. Check your Formatting
Is your manuscript format correct? (APA style, Chicago style, etc.)
Have you italicized or underlined titles of plays and novels and put the titles of short stories and poems in quotation marks?
Does your works-cited (reference) list follow the proper citation format (most likely APA), and do you properly cite your quotations in the body of the text?
References
Gardner, J.E., & Diaz, J. (2017). Reading and writing about literature (4th ed.). Macmillan Learning.
Klein, S. (2013, April 1). How to edit your dissertation. The Guardian. News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's global edition | The Guardian
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Higher order concerns (HOCs) and lower order concerns (LOCs). Higher, Lower Order Concerns - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
University of Wisconsin-Madison. (2020). The writer’s handbook. UW-Madison Writer’s Handbook – The Writing Center – UW–Madison (wisc.edu)