9.6–Revise and Edit

It’s tempting to think you are finished with a writing assignment the minute you finish writing the last sentence of the conclusion, but revision and editing are every bit as important as drafting. Taking seriously these steps of the writing process will elevate your rough draft to a final draft that is ready for submission.

Revise Your Work

Revision is an integral, albeit often overlooked, part of the writing process. Students who have primarily written in timed-writing situations such as standardized tests or final exams might not have much practice with revision, so here are a few things to keep in mind as you incorporate revisions into your writing process. First and foremost, revision and editing (discussed in more detail below) are two different parts of the writing process. While editing focuses on the sentence level to correct errors, revision focuses on a holistic examination of your paper. In other words, while revising, writers want to focus on the “big picture” of the paper. Do keep in mind, however, that even though your revision tends to focus on the “big picture” of your paper, small changes, even those on the sentence level such as adding logical transitions or rewording for clarity, can have a large impact on the overall effectiveness of your essay.

As you re-read your paper, you might consider the elements that make a good body paragraph (discussed above in the “Developing Body Paragraphs” section): focus, coherence, content. These are largely the same characteristics that define a good essay, as is described below:

Focus: Make sure that your essay actually revolves around your thesis. Does each paragraph clearly relate to the thesis? Do you point back to the thesis throughout your essay? Is all of your evidence functioning to demonstrate the validity of your thesis, or do you have extraneous bits and pieces that don’t help your argument?

Coherence: Make sure that your essay has an effective organizational structure and that it flows logically. Does it have an introduction, a body series of body paragraphs, and a conclusion? Do you use transitions to connect ideas within paragraphs and to link paragraphs together? Does the order of your body paragraphs make sense, or will it confuse readers?

Content: Make sure that you have provided adequate content so that your readers are convinced of the strength and validity of your argument? Does the body section of the paper have enough relevant content to confirm your thesis? Do individual body paragraphs have enough relevant content to support the individual topic sentences? Have you provided concrete evidence from your primary text(s) in the form of quotations, paraphrases, and summaries?

Reverse outlining is one useful strategy for revision. In a reverse outline, writers take a completed draft of their paper and remove all of the supporting content. What you are left with is your thesis and your topic sentences—in other words, a bullet-point list that allows you to see the structure of your paper in a quick glance. You can also try writing out a brief sentence articulating the main argument of each paper to make sure that each topic sentence accurately communicates the main idea of its body paragraph. Reverse outlining can help you identify strengths and weaknesses in the organizational structure of your paper, uncover sections of the paper that would benefit from more content or stronger transitions, and even determine whether your thesis accurately reflects the material in your body paragraphs.

As mentioned above in the “Developing a Thesis” section, you want to revisit your thesis frequently while drafting and revising. Writers often refine their thesis statements throughout the writing process as they encounter complicating and confirming evidence through the process of researching, writing and revising. Writers also often “write their way to the thesis,” meaning that writers often uncover their strongest arguments while they are in the process of drafting. Sometimes, the best articulation of the paper’s argument comes at the conclusion of the first draft rather than in the sentence or sentences that the writer initially identified as the thesis. There is nothing wrong with discovering the best version of your thesis as you write as long as you revise accordingly. After all, writing is a recursive process of discovery!

Proofreading Your Work

Proofreading is the process of focusing on the sentence level to correct errors. Typically, proofreading involves identifying and correcting spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. You might also improve sentence structure during the process of proofreading. Your instructor might mark but not correct errors on a draft with the expectation that you will address these errors before submitting the final draft. Similarly, your instructor might mark errors on a graded assignment. Review these errors so that you can avoid making them in future assignments. You might even want to make a list of common errors or trouble spots in your writing and return to that list when you proofread subsequent assignments. Always ask your instructor if you are uncertain about how to correct these errors.