Guidelines for Revising and Editing Your Work

by Thomas Anerine

The following guidelines will help you both in the initial stages of writing your papers and in the later stages of revision.

Step 1. Thinking about Macro Considerations

Think about the following questions and issues: What kind of essay does the assignment call for--comparison and contrast, cause and effect, descriptive, informative, interpretive, persuasive, or narrative? How well does the essay you have written meet the requirements of the assignment? Does the assignment call for a formal/academic essay or more of an informal/personal essay? Does your essay meet this requirement?

Step 2. Reviewing Content

What do you want your audience to think believe or feel? How will you win your audience to your point of view? Make sure you have enough supporting evidence or details.

Step 3. Reviewing Organization

(a.) Are your main ideas clearly stated? What are they? Are they easy to identify in the text? Are your ideas well supported with enough facts, details or examples? See if there are any details you can add. Student essays usually don’t have enough details or examples, so chances are it won’t hurt to add more.

Now, look over the facts/details you provide and the general direction of your essay/argument. It may be that your topic sentence is not a good match for the rest of your essay. The topic sentence may be too narrow to relate to the examples you provide. Or it may be too general. Be flexible and willing to modify your topic sentence and/or your original ideas.

(b.) What are you trying to say in your writing? Does the essay accurately reflect the way you think or feel? If not, try to identify where the problem in your writing lies. You may want to re-write a sentence another way or rearrange the order of some of the sentences. Don’t be afraid to rearrange portions of your essay.

(c.) How have you presented your supporting facts or details? Is your idea or argument supported by enough information? Do not assume you audience knows what you know. You have to explain to your audience what you are talking about. How have you organized the information you provide? Are your arguments or claims demonstrated logically? If there are any steps missing in your logic, you have to fill in the missing steps.

(d.) How do you fill in the missing steps? Listed below are a number of strategies that can help you make your ideas more complete. Look over these strategies and see if it will help to include them.

Step 4. Stylistic considerations

(a.) Is your language register appropriate to the assignment? In formal writing avoid using indefinite pronouns such as it, they, and you. The problem with this kind of usage is that the pronoun reference is vague. Look at these examples and try to avoid this in your writing.

"When traveling in a foreign country, you should respect the local customs."

"They say the population of the world will double in twenty years."

"It is said that the infant mortality rate is going down.

In formal writing you also should not write in the first person or offer personal opinions. For example, you should not write sentences like:

I liked this book because the characters were funny.

I think the death penalty is inhumane.

(b.) Sentence Variation. Try to include variation in sentence length and structure. Nothing is more boring than reading a series of sentences that begin the same way and sound alike. Instead of having a series of short simple sentences, try to combine sentences.

Different types of sentence structure:

simple sentence

Marsha got drunk

Marsha went to Atlantic City.

Marsha gambled all night.

compound sentence

Marsha got drunk and she went to Atlantic City.

Marsha went to Atlantic City, and she gambled all night.

complex sentence

After getting drunk, Marsha went to Atlantic City.

compound-complex sentence

After getting drunk, Marsha went to Atlantic City, and she gambled all night.

Please note that a subordinate clause may appear at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence. Also, there are many subordinating conjunctions to choose from. Here are some; you can find more in your grammar textbook.

though although despite unless because before when whenever wherever while until once

You may also create relative clauses by using relative pronouns. Here are just a few:

that which who whom whose

You may also add some variety to your paper by choosing to use both active and passive voice.

active voice

Affie seduced the young man.

passive voice

The young man was seduced by Affie.

Step 5. Common Grammatical Errors to Avoid

Below are listed some common grammatical errors. Look for them in your work. One way to do this is to look at a construction or usage --for example the use of an article. If you cannot explain why you wrote it that way or if you cannot explain the grammatical rule, you better double-check it. Go back and look in your textbook or refer a good website about writing (such as 'The Research Paper'.

Step 6. Read it aloud

Sometimes after working on a paper for a long time it is easy to overlook mistakes. One way to overcome this problem is to read the paper aloud. By doing this you may discover there are words you forgot to write. You might also find you don’t like the way a part of it sounds. At this point, you should look for spelling errors. To be extra careful, consult a list of irregular verbs to see if you’ve made any verb form errors.

Step 7. Put it away for a while and return to it later

If you set your paper aside for a while and return to it later, you may come back to it with a fresh perspective and new ideas. You may think that your original ideas were not good enough, and you may want to fix them. The best way to employ this strategy is to come back to your paper after a good night’s sleep. If you don’t have this much time, then set the paper aside for an hour.

Step 8. Have a friend read your paper

This is a good strategy because a friend can point out if there are any problems. A friend can also help you to develop and expand your ideas. Two heads are sometimes better than one.

Step 9. Rewrite