essay revision practice

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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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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.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Editing and Proofreading

What this handout is about.

This handout provides some tips and strategies for revising your writing. To give you a chance to practice proofreading, we have left seven errors (three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors) in the text of this handout. See if you can spot them!

Is editing the same thing as proofreading?

Not exactly. Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques.

Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading

• Get some distance from the text! It’s hard to edit or proofread a paper that you’ve just finished writing—it’s still to familiar, and you tend to skip over a lot of errors. Put the paper aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. Go for a run. Take a trip to the beach. Clear your head of what you’ve written so you can take a fresh look at the paper and see what is really on the page. Better yet, give the paper to a friend—you can’t get much more distance than that. Someone who is reading the paper for the first time, comes to it with completely fresh eyes.
• Decide which medium lets you proofread most carefully. Some people like to work right at the computer, while others like to sit back with a printed copy that they can mark up as they read.
• Try changing the look of your document. Altering the size, spacing, color, or style of the text may trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing an unfamiliar document, and that can help you get a different perspective on what you’ve written.
• Find a quiet place to work. Don’t try to do your proofreading in front of the TV or while you’re chugging away on the treadmill. Find a place where you can concentrate and avoid distractions.
• If possible, do your editing and proofreading in several short blocks of time. Your concentration may start to wane if you try to proofread the entire text at one time.
• If you’re short on time, you may wish to prioritize. Make sure that you complete the most important editing and proofreading tasks.

Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument. You can edit on several levels:

Have you done everything the assignment requires? Are the claims you make accurate? If it is required to do so, does your paper make an argument? Is the argument complete? Are all of your claims consistent? Have you supported each point with adequate evidence? Is all of the information in your paper relevant to the assignment and/or your overall writing goal? (For additional tips, see our handouts on understanding assignments and developing an argument .)

Overall structure

Does your paper have an appropriate introduction and conclusion? Is your thesis clearly stated in your introduction? Is it clear how each paragraph in the body of your paper is related to your thesis? Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical sequence? Have you made clear transitions between paragraphs? One way to check the structure of your paper is to make a reverse outline of the paper after you have written the first draft. (See our handouts on introductions , conclusions , thesis statements , and transitions .)

Structure within paragraphs

Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence? Does each paragraph stick to one main idea? Are there any extraneous or missing sentences in any of your paragraphs? (See our handout on paragraph development .)

Have you defined any important terms that might be unclear to your reader? Is the meaning of each sentence clear? (One way to answer this question is to read your paper one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working backwards so that you will not unconsciously fill in content from previous sentences.) Is it clear what each pronoun (he, she, it, they, which, who, this, etc.) refers to? Have you chosen the proper words to express your ideas? Avoid using words you find in the thesaurus that aren’t part of your normal vocabulary; you may misuse them.

Have you used an appropriate tone (formal, informal, persuasive, etc.)? Is your use of gendered language (masculine and feminine pronouns like “he” or “she,” words like “fireman” that contain “man,” and words that some people incorrectly assume apply to only one gender—for example, some people assume “nurse” must refer to a woman) appropriate? Have you varied the length and structure of your sentences? Do you tends to use the passive voice too often? Does your writing contain a lot of unnecessary phrases like “there is,” “there are,” “due to the fact that,” etc.? Do you repeat a strong word (for example, a vivid main verb) unnecessarily? (For tips, see our handouts on style and gender-inclusive language .)

Have you appropriately cited quotes, paraphrases, and ideas you got from sources? Are your citations in the correct format? (See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for more information.)

As you edit at all of these levels, you will usually make significant revisions to the content and wording of your paper. Keep an eye out for patterns of error; knowing what kinds of problems you tend to have will be helpful, especially if you are editing a large document like a thesis or dissertation. Once you have identified a pattern, you can develop techniques for spotting and correcting future instances of that pattern. For example, if you notice that you often discuss several distinct topics in each paragraph, you can go through your paper and underline the key words in each paragraph, then break the paragraphs up so that each one focuses on just one main idea.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, focusing on surface errors such as misspellings and mistakes in grammar and punctuation. You should proofread only after you have finished all of your other editing revisions.

Why proofread? It’s the content that really matters, right?

Content is important. But like it or not, the way a paper looks affects the way others judge it. When you’ve worked hard to develop and present your ideas, you don’t want careless errors distracting your reader from what you have to say. It’s worth paying attention to the details that help you to make a good impression.

Most people devote only a few minutes to proofreading, hoping to catch any glaring errors that jump out from the page. But a quick and cursory reading, especially after you’ve been working long and hard on a paper, usually misses a lot. It’s better to work with a definite plan that helps you to search systematically for specific kinds of errors.

Sure, this takes a little extra time, but it pays off in the end. If you know that you have an effective way to catch errors when the paper is almost finished, you can worry less about editing while you are writing your first drafts. This makes the entire writing proccess more efficient.

Try to keep the editing and proofreading processes separate. When you are editing an early draft, you don’t want to be bothered with thinking about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. If your worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you’re not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas.

The proofreading process

You probably already use some of the strategies discussed below. Experiment with different tactics until you find a system that works well for you. The important thing is to make the process systematic and focused so that you catch as many errors as possible in the least amount of time.

• Don’t rely entirely on spelling checkers. These can be useful tools but they are far from foolproof. Spell checkers have a limited dictionary, so some words that show up as misspelled may really just not be in their memory. In addition, spell checkers will not catch misspellings that form another valid word. For example, if you type “your” instead of “you’re,” “to” instead of “too,” or “there” instead of “their,” the spell checker won’t catch the error.
• Grammar checkers can be even more problematic. These programs work with a limited number of rules, so they can’t identify every error and often make mistakes. They also fail to give thorough explanations to help you understand why a sentence should be revised. You may want to use a grammar checker to help you identify potential run-on sentences or too-frequent use of the passive voice, but you need to be able to evaluate the feedback it provides.
• Proofread for only one kind of error at a time. If you try to identify and revise too many things at once, you risk losing focus, and your proofreading will be less effective. It’s easier to catch grammar errors if you aren’t checking punctuation and spelling at the same time. In addition, some of the techniques that work well for spotting one kind of mistake won’t catch others.
• Read slow, and read every word. Try reading out loud , which forces you to say each word and also lets you hear how the words sound together. When you read silently or too quickly, you may skip over errors or make unconscious corrections.
• Separate the text into individual sentences. This is another technique to help you to read every sentence carefully. Simply press the return key after every period so that every line begins a new sentence. Then read each sentence separately, looking for grammar, punctuation, or spelling errors. If you’re working with a printed copy, try using an opaque object like a ruler or a piece of paper to isolate the line you’re working on.
• Circle every punctuation mark. This forces you to look at each one. As you circle, ask yourself if the punctuation is correct.
• Read the paper backwards. This technique is helpful for checking spelling. Start with the last word on the last page and work your way back to the beginning, reading each word separately. Because content, punctuation, and grammar won’t make any sense, your focus will be entirely on the spelling of each word. You can also read backwards sentence by sentence to check grammar; this will help you avoid becoming distracted by content issues.
• Proofreading is a learning process. You’re not just looking for errors that you recognize; you’re also learning to recognize and correct new errors. This is where handbooks and dictionaries come in. Keep the ones you find helpful close at hand as you proofread.
• Ignorance may be bliss, but it won’t make you a better proofreader. You’ll often find things that don’t seem quite right to you, but you may not be quite sure what’s wrong either. A word looks like it might be misspelled, but the spell checker didn’t catch it. You think you need a comma between two words, but you’re not sure why. Should you use “that” instead of “which”? If you’re not sure about something, look it up.
• The proofreading process becomes more efficient as you develop and practice a systematic strategy. You’ll learn to identify the specific areas of your own writing that need careful attention, and knowing that you have a sound method for finding errors will help you to focus more on developing your ideas while you are drafting the paper.

Think you’ve got it?

Then give it a try, if you haven’t already! This handout contains seven errors our proofreader should have caught: three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors. Try to find them, and then check a version of this page with the errors marked in red to see if you’re a proofreading star.

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.

Especially for non-native speakers of English:

Ascher, Allen. 2006. Think About Editing: An ESL Guide for the Harbrace Handbooks . Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Lane, Janet, and Ellen Lange. 2012. Writing Clearly: Grammar for Editing , 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle.

For everyone:

Einsohn, Amy. 2011. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications , 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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

Tarshis, Barry. 1998. How to Be Your Own Best Editor: The Toolkit for Everyone Who Writes . New York: Three Rivers Press.

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

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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?

Academic Revising 101: The Essential Essay Revision Checklist

by Suzanne Davis | Feb 8, 2018 | Academic Writing Skills , Writing Essays and Papers

What do you do after you write the first draft of your essay?

You should feel proud because you just finished the hard work of taking ideas and information and writing the first draft.  It’s the hardest obstacle to overcome. But you still need to revise and shape it into a great final essay.  I created an essay revision checklist to guide you through the entire revising process.

Revision is key the to great writing.  Author E.B. White stated, “The best writing is rewriting.”  So, get excited about revising because you’re taking your writing and making it your best writing.

The Essay Revision Process

When you finish a first draft take a break.  Wait a few hours or if possible a day.  You will come back to your writing with a fresh pair of eyes.   Then go back to your essay and launch into revising it.

In this post, I show you a three-phase revision process that has some overlap with editing.   But, I focus on revising because it includes deeper changes to ideas and information in your essay.

The essay revision checklist here has three sections:  content, organization, and clarity.  Go through each section separately.  Move on from one section to the next when you’ve completed everything in a section.

The Essay Revision Checklist

Revising the content of an essay.

Content is the substance of your essay.  It’s the topic, main ideas and supporting reasons that connect back to your thesis statement.   If you don’t have strong content your essay is a group of fluffy words.

Checklist for Good Essay Content

• Content reveals the purpose of your essay or paper.
• There is a complex and supportable thesis statement.
• The main ideas support the thesis statement.
• There are supporting details for each of the main ideas.
• There is evidence to support the main ideas and thesis statement.

Keep revising the essay until you can check off each of these elements.

Revising the Organization of an Essay

Essays are organized into 3 basic parts: the introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction has a hook, overview of the topic or description of the situation, and the thesis statement. The body contains the ideas and details that support the thesis statement.  It’s the heart of your essay content.   The conclusion summarizes the thesis statement and describes the significance of it.

Checklist for Good Essay Organization

• The introduction starts with a hook.  A hook is a sentence or a few sentences that capture your reader’s interest.  Read, “7 Sensational Types of Essays Hooks”   https://www.academicwritingsuccess.com/7-sensational-types-of-essay-hooks/ and see different hooks you can use in your writing.
• The introduction has an overview of the topic that leads to the thesis statement.
• The body of the essay is organized so that the main ideas follow the sequence of things stated in your thesis .  For example, if your thesis statement lists three causes of something: Cause A, Cause B, and Cause C.  The first part of your essay examines Cause A.  The second part examines Cause B etc.
• The conclusion reviews the thesis statement and points out something significant about it. It shows some importance to your field, to people in general, to life, history, etc. Why does your thesis matter?

Revising Your Essay for Clarity

Clarity means that your ideas, sentences, and words are easy to understand.  Clarity is the window through which the reader sees your meaning.  If your essay is unclear, the content of your essay is confusing.

When you revise your essay for clarity analyze the ideas, sentences, and words in your writing.  I’ve included in this checklist the common problems I see in essays.

Checklist for Essay Clarity

• There is subject-verb agreement throughout the essay.  A singular subject has a singular verb tense. Plural subjects have plural verb tenses.  An example of a singular subject and singular verb tense is: He drinks hot coffee .  A plural subject with a plural verb tense is: They drink ice tea.
• There is good sentence flow . Fix any run-ons, incomplete sentences, short choppy sentences or just very long sentences. Make sure you have sentence variety in your essay.  Not all your sentences are short, and not all sentences are long.  Mix it up.
• There are no unclear or confusing words or phrases .   Don’t overuse academic vocabulary or the thesaurus.  Use words and phrases you understand .
• The Point of View (POV) (1 st person, 2 nd person or 3 rd person) is consistent and appropriate for the essay.   Most academic essays are written from the 3 rd person (he, she, they, it,) POV.  Usually, narrative essays and descriptive essays use the 1 st person (I, me, we, us,) POV.   Rarely is an essay written from the 2 nd person (you, your) POV.
• The pronouns agree in number and person .   For information on pronoun agreement, see Purdue OWL, “Using Pronouns Clearly.” https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/595/01/
• T he punctuation is correct .

After the Revision Process

When you’re done with the checklist, get another person to read your essay.  Ask that person for suggestions.  This could be a classmate, a peer tutor, or a private tutor (in-person or online).

Your professor might offer to help you during office hours. Professors are busy, so check to see if they offer that kind of assistance.  Writing professors usually do.  Professors of other subjects will tell you to go to a tutor.

Next, edit and proofread for grammar and spelling mistakes.   Don’t just use a spell checker/ grammar checker or Grammarly.  Read your essay aloud and listen for mistakes.  When you read aloud you read slower and see more punctuation problems.  You also notice missing words.

Another great tip is to read your paper from the last sentence all the way back to the first sentence.  This way you’re not focusing on the content and how things fit together.  You see each sentence individually.  It’s easier to find grammar mistakes when you focus on one sentence at a time.

I teach students this 3-part revision process because it highlights the key elements of an academic essay.  It helps you analyze content, organize content, and make your essay clear to the reader.   This essay revision checklist will help you change your first draft into a strong piece of academic writing.

Are you revising an academic paper? Then download your free copy of The Roadmap to Revising Academic Writing and Handing in a Great Final Paper! Each section has a list of questions that will help you revise the content, organization, and clarity of an academic paper.    Sign-up at the form above and get your free guide now!

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GKT103: General Knowledge for Teachers – Essays

Revising and Editing

You've probably heard someone say they were going to revise or edit an essay. Did you know these are different things? When we revise, we think about the big picture in an essay: the thesis, the main ideas, the supporting details, the organization, etc. When we edit, we focus on the sentence-level points: spelling, grammar, word choices, etc. Both are important and must be done when we complete your essay on the exam. This resource provides strategies for revising and editing that you can practice before your exam to help you strengthen the final essay you submit.

See It in Practice

In this video cast, you'll see how our student addresses her revision and editing process using specific feedback on her essay from her professor. You'll be able to see how she uses the feedback to make her essay stronger and what revision looks like in comparison to editing.

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How to revise your college essay

A step-by-step guide for revising your college essay.

Bonus Material:   PrepMaven’s 30 College Essays That Worked

You’re been diligently working on putting together your college application essays, and now you’ve finally sat down and typed out a full, 650-word Common App essay. So… you’re done, right?

Alas, not quite. 

The good news is you’ve done the hardest bit–the first draft. 

The bad news? If you’re seriously planning to wow college admissions officers at top schools with your application essay, you’ve still got a lot of work to do on the personal essay itself. 

At PrepMaven, we’ve helped countless students perfect their admissions essays and earn acceptances to some of the most selective colleges. What did all of those successful college applications have in common? The application essay always went through many, many revisions and redrafts. 

In this post, we’re going to break down the process by which you can revise the early drafts of your college admissions essay, turning it into a successful, polished essay that’ll convince admissions committees that you deserve a spot. 

In the free link below, you can find 30 real sample essays: all finished products that have undergone the rigorous revision process we’re going to outline for you later in the post. 

Download 30 College Essays that Worked

Jump to section: How big a deal is revision, really? The five stages of revision Stage 1: Big picture and content Stage 2: Organization Stage 3: Style and language Stage 4: Pruning Stage 5: Proofreading Next steps

How big a deal is revision, really?

No beating around the bush: when it comes to the college admissions process, essay revision is basically mandatory. 

We’ve never–not once–seen a first draft that wouldn’t benefit from being redrafted, tweaked, or polished. Even if your first draft is really, really good, revisions will help make it great, maybe even perfect. 

And when we say revision, we don’t just mean going through and changing a few words or catching some grammar mistakes. Revision means significantly rewriting or reorganizing portions of your essay. It might mean cutting whole paragraphs and replacing them; it might mean taking what you thought would be an introduction and making it part of the body; it might even mean keeping the basic ideas but changing just about everything else. 

Revision will also always mean working on things like sentence structure and word choice, but these are actually more like the finishing touches. Much of your earlier revision work is going to include making big changes, and our guide will walk you through how to do exactly that. 

The five stages of revision

We think it’s most helpful to think about college essay revision/editing in five stages: 

• Big picture/content
• Organization
• Style/language
• Proofreading 

Each of these stages means looking at different elements of your essay, and each stage involves asking specific questions about what’s working and what isn’t. 

This all presumes you have a first or rough draft already. If you’re just starting the college application process or the essay,then be sure to check out our posts on brainstorming and topic selection , essay structures , and essay beginnings and endings. 

Stage 1: Big picture/content

When people think of revision, they often jump right to looking for grammar mistakes or messing around with word choice and sentence structure. Usually, that ends up being a big waste of time. 

Why? Because, if you’re doing revision right , you’ll be rewriting large portions of your essay to ensure that the fundamental pieces (the content and the organizations) are perfect. There’s really no reason to waste time making all the sentences sound pretty when, odds are, you’ll be totally changing lots of those sentences anyway. 

So, the first stage of revision should always mean looking at the big picture–by which we really just mean the actual content of your essay. 

Here are the key questions to ask yourself in the first stage of revision: 

• What do you want this entire essay to tell the admissions committee about you?
• What parts of this essay are absolutely necessary to get that central idea across? 
• What parts of this essay are unnecessary to that central idea?

It’s only three questions, but these are big questions that deserve careful attention. If you want to understand what kinds of topics are good responses to question 1, we’d really recommend you consult our post on topic selection here. 

Once you’ve concretely identified the answer to 1, identify what in your essay is fundamentally necessary for it to work. These ideas will be the backbone of your essay; you will likely still edit and reorganize them in further drafts, but you won’t cut them out entirely

Say, for example, the central idea is that your experiences growing up in a town marked by gross wealth disparities have made you determined to combat economic inequality. In that essay, the “backbone” you identify in the first editing stage might be a vivid example of this wealth disparity, a narrative of your understanding of it developed as you grew, and a final discussion of how and why it has shaped your current goals. 

These are things that probably need to be kept for the story to make sense. 

You’ll next want to identify anything that doesn’t connect meaningfully to the central idea. 

In the hypothetical example above, maybe the student had a paragraph or two about athletic struggles or their passion for some extracurricular. If those ideas aren’t necessary for the essay’s main takeaway, they should be cut. You only have, in most cases, 650 words: if you want to put together a detailed, polished personal statement, you just won’t have room for any ideas that aren’t necessary. 

We want to be clear that when we say “necessary” and “unnecessary” here, we’re talking about ideas and large elements of your draft, not any individual sentence or detail. Obviously, there’s lots of details that aren’t “necessary” for the main story, but the purpose of this stage isn’t to focus on those. 

Instead, your goal should simply be to find your essay’s backbone, and ensure there aren’t large sections of your personal statement dedicated to discussing something tangential. 

Your second draft should cut out all these unnecessary ideas while retaining the necessary ones. Reread this second draft (after taking some time away from it) and ask yourself the same questions. If everything in this second draft is necessary, proceed to Stage 2. If not, repeat what you did for Stage 1. 

Note: these initial drafts should be near or over word count. If you find you’ve cut out so much that you’re down below 600 words, that means you’ll also have to add more content to those necessary “backbone” sections. 

Click the link below for 30 essays that mastered the big picture elements, and see how every part of each essay works together. 

Stage 2: Organization

Now that you have the necessary parts of your essay all in one place, you want to organize them in the way that’s most conducive to telling your story to admissions officers. 

Check out our guides on intros and conclusions for some guidance that can help with those sections, and read through our collection of essays that worked to see what a well organized essay looks like. 

The fundamental questions you want to ask here:

• Does the essay start in a way that sets up the main idea without giving too much away?
• Does each paragraph flow smoothly from the preceding one?
• Does each paragraph clearly describe a specific moment or articulate a specific point?
• Does the first sentence of each paragraph make clear what direction the paragraph is going?
• Does the essay end in a way that captures the main idea without feeling repetitive or unnecessary?

As you can maybe tell by the increased number of questions, this stage is tricky, and will likely take multiple drafts. A poorly organized essay–no matter how good the content–will be basically unreadable, so this stage is worth taking your time with. 

Because good organization can be tough to pull off, it’s also probably a good idea to call in an expert at this point–our college essay coaches can read through your essay and tell you right off the bat if it’s organized properly or not. 

For questions 1 and 5, the best resources on what makes a good intro or good ending are our blog posts, linked above. 

For the body paragraphs, there are several techniques you can use to ensure proper flow:

• Short paragraphs are almost always best. Each paragraph should convey one crucial thing–a part of the story, a train of thought. If you see an opportunity to jump to a new paragraph, take it. Shorter paragraphs almost always help make things easier to read. 
• Each paragraph should begin with something like a “topic sentence,” though not a stiff, formal one like you’d have in English class. The first sentence of each paragraph should clue the reader in on what the paragraph will be about without summarizing . 
• Each paragraph should build on the previous one, developing your story and reflection. In other words, each paragraph should only make sense in one place–once your essay is well-organized, it should be impossible to move a paragraph without profoundly changing the essay. 

It’s not easy work, but it’s crucial. As usual, your best friends here are taking time away from the essay, reading it aloud, and getting a second opinion. After you take your first stab at reorganization, give the essay a day. Then, read it aloud to someone you trust (like a PrepMaven essay coach, maybe) and ask them whether the story it tells makes sense. 

As with Stage 1, don’t worry about pretty language or grammar here. The goal of this stage is to take the pieces you’ve settled on and arrange them in a way that works. 

Stage 3: Style and Language

Once you’ve gotten through stages 1 and 2, then you should start focusing on prettying up the language. 

It’s crucial that you lock down content and organization before getting to this stage, or you risk wasting a lot of time. So, to be safe, give your essay a few more read-throughs and ensure the fundamental story you’re telling makes sense and flow. If it does, then it’s time to make the thing sound good.

• Read it aloud. Does your essay sound like it has a distinct, personal voice?
• Does your essay use words that are formal, complicated, or unnatural to you?
• Does your essay use words that are unvaried, boring, generic?
• Are you showing, or telling?

These questions are crucial from a writing standpoint: if you want your essay to actually be a strong piece of writing that’s enjoyable to read, you need to get the right answers here. 

Of course, this can be difficult and feel subjective, especially if you don’t do much creative writing. Although by far the best way to work through these questions is with a writing expert by your side who can help you polish your writing, these questions can take you a long way. 

Most of these questions are really getting at the same thing: your essay needs to read and sound like something unique, something that captures your voice. It’s often easiest to get there by first identifying what you don’t want the college essay to be. 

It shouldn’t sound like the kind of analytical or formal essay you’ve written for English classes in high school. That’s why you don’t want to use any kind of stiff, thesaurus-y language and big, fancy transitions. 

At the same time, it shouldn’t sound like your stream of consciousness or a diary entry. You want the language to be interesting, compelling. You’re not just writing for yourself here, so you need to make it sound good. 

The best way to sum up the ideal tone for most college essays is something like this: imagine you’re trying to tell an interesting story to someone you don’t know very well, maybe at a party or something like that. You wouldn’t want to sound like someone from the nineteenth century, using fancy or old words for the sake of it. At the same time, you would want to keep the language engaging enough that you don’t lose their attention.

That’s where the now infamous advice of “show, don’t tell” comes in. You’ve probably heard that advice from just about every college counselor and English teacher, but we should break down what it actually means. What’s “showing” look like?

Simply put, it’s about telling a story rich with detail before making any broad or abstract claims about yourself. “Telling” would look something like: “I’ve always loved spending time with my grandfather.” “Showing” would instead mean actually describing how you spent time with your grandfather, what you did together, and how you felt in the moment. 

Or, to take another example: “I felt incredibly nervous” is a classic example of plain old telling. But you can make that same idea much more engaging by “showing:” “I tried to wipe my clammy palms on my pant legs, hoping nobody would notice the tremor in my voice. Oh God, I was up next. ”

It’s not that you can never “tell” in your essay. But you can never just tell: anything you want to tell us, you’ve first got to show us. 

Stage 3 takes a while, but it can be fun. At this point, you shouldn’t be changing any ideas or organization in your essay. Each draft will just play around with the sentences, the word choice, and the details. And each draft should sound, when you read it aloud, just a little bit more interesting, more unique, more you than the last one. 

Take a look at the 30 essays below which worked to get students into schools like Princeton: each has a different style, but note how descriptive and vivid each essay is!

Stage 4: Pruning

Once you’ve finished Stage 3–meaning that now everything looks and sounds how you want it to–take a look at the word count. If you’re at or below 650, great; skip directly to Stage 5. 

If not, the next stage is all about simply cutting for length. While we don’t recommend worrying about word count much until this stage, you should do your best to keep a general eye on it through earlier stages to make sure your essay isn’t ballooning to crazy proportions. By the time you get to stage 4, you should really be at 800 words or less–anything over that means you’ve included too much content. 

This process will depend on just how much over word count your essay is. If you’re within 50 words, you’d be surprised at how much space you can save by simply cutting a word or two out of your sentences. It might sting a bit to get rid of an adjective you’ve fallen in love with, but remember that nobody but you will ever know that word was in there. 

Generally, you can cut anywhere from 50-75 words without actually getting rid of whole sentences. That being said, if you’ve tried that and are still over word count, that means it’s time to judiciously remove or drastically shorten a few sentences. 

Do you have a list of three examples? Cut it down to two, or one. Do you have two sentences that could be combined into one? Do it. Ultimately, this’ll come down to what details, words, and turns of phrase you really want to keep, and which you’re willing to sacrifice. 

The most important thing is really not to panic or worry too much about word count early on. Within reason, you should include everything the story needs to work and all the details you think make it unique. When you get to Stage 5, start by looking with a careful eye for any word or phrase you can get rid of, and you’ll usually be able to free up all the room you need.

Stage 5: Proofreading

Almost there: you’ve got your essay in beautiful, polished shape. Now, you just need to proofread for grammatical, spelling, or typographical errors. This very last stage can be a quick one, but deserves to be taken seriously. 

Our advice: 

• Identify and fix any grammar errors. 
• Print the essay.
• Using a pen or highlighter, identify any weird spacing, typos, misplaced commas, etc. 
• Fix those on your typed document.
• Repeat. 

Nothing stings more than submitting the perfect essay only to reread it later and find an embarrassing typo. One won’t sink your application–even college admissions officers misspell things–but a few can make you seem careless. 

That’s why we really stress printing out the document and going over it multiple times on paper. Once you get really used to seeing it on the screen, it can be hard to catch tiny mistakes. By printing it out and looking at it in a different medium, you’ll be far less likely to let something slip. 

A note on the grammar: this can be tricky, especially if you’re not a grammar expert yourself. While Google Docs and Word can be helpful and catch the occasional grammar mistake, they are absolutely not perfect. In fact, I’ve seen them suggest “revisions” that were grammatically incorrect. 

If you’re not 100% confident in your grammar knowledge, that’s another area where one of our essay tutors can be a huge help. They are grammar experts, and they’ll be able to make sure there aren’t any embarrassing mistakes tarnishing your final product. 

Revision is a tough, long process. But by following this step-by-step guide, you can maximize your time and efficiency. Each stage in this process is absolutely crucial if you want to create a successful college essay, which is all the more important given the stakes of the college application process. 

If you’re not quite at the revision stage yet, look at our other posts linked below, all of which tackle different elements of the college essay process. 

If you want to look at samples of final, fully-revised essays, click on the link below to download 30 free, real college essay samples. 

Happy revising!

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Mike is a PhD candidate studying English literature at Duke University. Mike is an expert test prep tutor (SAT/ACT/LSAT) and college essay consultant. Nearly all of Mike’s SAT/ACT students score in the top 5% of test takers; many even score above 1500 on the SAT. His college essay students routinely earn admission into their top-choice schools, including Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth. And his LSAT students have been accepted In into the top law schools in the country, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia Law.

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FSU | Writing Resources

Writing Resources

The English Department

• College Composition

Revising Drafts

Developing source dialogue—revising researched writing, make it interesting/make me want to read it: catchy openings, out from under the rug: radical revision, play it again, sam: analysis vs. summary, proofreading pitfalls handout for self-editing, raising the stakes: adding tension and intensity to a story, stylistic revision: maximizing clarity and directness, the wet beagle: show me, don't tell me workshop, titles (say so much), what is it enriching descriptive writing.

Purpose:  This exercise focuses on research article revision.

Description:  This revision exercise helps students identify source-heavy writing and work towards viewing source material as a "person" with whom they carry on a conversation. You'll want to have an excerpt, short essay, or film clip ready for Part 2. Choose one with an overtly opinionated bent/bias that is sure to elicit a response. For a video clip, something like Michael Moore's interview with Marilyn Manson would work.

Suggested Time:  35 minutes to full class period

• Ask students to bring two different-colored highlighters to class with their drafts. They’ll likely be in the later stages of drafting the research article, using a lot of source material.
• Talk about tone and narrative voice (probably a topic you dealt with at the beginning of drafting). Can they easily identify different "voices" in writing? More importantly, can they identify the voice of a source over their own?

Now, have them take out the first highlighter color and find all the sentences on at least the first two or three pages that contain source material and highlight the from-source portions. Even if they have paraphrased the source, highlight it. 

They’ll probably start to notice their pages turning pink, orange, yellow, or green – depending on the color of the highlighter! This is an indication that there’s too much source and not enough author-source dialogue. Explain that there should be no more than 20 percent strict source material in any article – the author’s voice and focus should always predominate. 

• Now, take out highlighter color two. Ask them to go through and mark those passages containing strictly author opinion, viewpoint, unique ideas, or thoughts. Most students will find this color a bit underused, but others will notice too much highlighter here if their source material was seriously lacking.
• Take a moment to diagnose the different problems these papers may be suffering from. Too much color one means source overload. Too much color two means empty opinion and guesswork. A comfortable balance means they’re probably doing well – but they can still benefit from developing smooth narrator-source dialogue.
• Tell students that you’re going to play the part of a talking source by reading your chosen excerpt allowed (or playing your video clip). Read or play the sample, statement-by-statement, pausing at each point to allow students to write their honest, opinionated, conversational response to what the "source" has just said. They should pretend that they’re talking face-to-face with the author or speaker replying naturally and intelligently.
• Once you feel you’ve got sufficient conversation/dialogue generated on paper, ask a few students to read their replies as you reread the "source" (like a script), creating an actual conversation. Discuss handling sources as if in dialogue with them. Have students try this with highlighted source sections of their drafts.

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Purpose:  This exercise works to develop strong first sentences and unique voices in student writing. 

Description:  This is a voice activity demonstrating the fact that many student pieces could use more “personality” and that many of them sound exactly alike. This exercise is an attempt to help students enliven writing. This would work well with an early draft of a personal narrative or short story, but could be easily adopted for a research assignment.

Suggested Time:  30-40 minutes

Procedure: 

1. Pull first sentences from some of your students’ papers and first sentences from published sources and mix them up. None of them are identified. 

2. Put them on the overhead and the students rank the sentences from most interesting to least interesting. Usually, their sentences are at the bottom of the list, and often, many of the writers do not recognize their own sentences.

3. After pointing out which sentences originated where, we then discuss why they ranked the high sentences as high as they did. We discuss voice and how the writers seem to get right into what they are writing about.

4. Then challenge students to rewrite opening sentences 3 or 4 different ways. After they feel like they have successfully done this, they share their sentences and discuss which work better or worse and why, than the original sentence.

5. As the final step of the exercise, have students rewrite introductory paragraphs to maintain the “more interesting” voice throughout. As a requirement for the next draft, they must sustain that interesting voice throughout the entire paper, demonstrating audience awareness.

Sample first sentences:

“The fellas and I were hanging out on our corner one afternoon when the strangest thing happened. A white boy, who appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen years old, came pedaling a bicycle casually through the neighborhood” (3). –Nathan McCall,  Makes Me Wanna Holler

“He came to kill the preacher. So he arrived early, extra early, a whole two hours before the evening service would begin” (193). –Edwidge Danticat,  The Dew Breakers

“By our second day at Camp Crescendo, the girls in my Brownie troop had decided to kick the asses of each and every girl in Brownie Troop 909” (1). –Z.Z. Packer, “Brownies”

“I was fourteen that summer. August brought heat I had never known, and during the dreamlike drought of those days I saw my father for the first time in my life” (1). –William Henry Lewis, “Shades”

“My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order: 1. Alison Ashworth. 2. Penny Hardwick. 3. Jackie Allen. 4. Charlie Nicholson. 5. Sarah Kendrew.” (3). –Nick Hornsby,  High Fidelity

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petosky, Michigan, in August of 1974” (3). –Jeffrey Eugenides,  Middlesex

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm” (9). –Octavia Butler,  Kindred

Purpose:  A radical revision exercise that allows students to experiment with revision and rewrite their essays from different perspectives, endings, structures, etc.

Description:  Students often dislike revising, particularly at the beginning of ENC 1101. They feel that whatever they’ve written is set in stone and cannot be changed. These exercises, which focus on rewriting a story, show students that revising is possible and can even improve a paper. This exercise allows students to begin with revising one essay as a class so they can get an objective feel for radical revision, and then the revision strategies can be extended to the student’s own draft so they can get something tangible to consider using for themselves. This exercise works well with an early draft of the short story assignment.

Suggested time:  A full class period, continue as possible homework assignment.

1. Have students read “Out from Under the Rug” (2006-7 OOW) before class. 2. Ask students to rewrite a specific scene from the perspective of another character. 3. Rewrite the story with a different ending. Since this story is very dramatic, anything could happen. Have students rewrite the ending of the story using some of these suggestions:

• Rory ends up with Landon
• Rory breaks up with Aidan
• Rory decides to be single
• Landon and Aidan fight over Rory
• Madison confesses her love for Aidan, Landon or Rory

4. Discuss how their revisions have changed the story. Is it better? Worse? How does the reader relate to the characters and the narrative action with the newly revised scenes? Does the story still make sense? 5. Ask students to revise a scene from their own papers from either a different perspective, or to completely change the ending of their story.

Purpose:  To help students differentiate between analysis and summary and then apply that knowledge to their own drafts. This works in conjunction with any number of papers in the 1101 and 1102 strands, particularly well if the students are doing analysis of visual texts in their papers, though it can be adapted for written texts as well.

Description:  Through visuals, this activity asks students to differentiate between summary (this is what happens) and analysis (this is why it happens) by watching a movie clip twice and writing two different texts in response. A successful clip is suggested here, but you will need access to whatever you show (via DVD, uTube, etc). The activity is also adaptable to a workshop format, requiring students to bring their drafts to class.

Suggested Time:  About an hour

Procedure:  Show an action-packed, short (5 min.) scene from a film, such as the clip from Pulp Fiction in which Vincent and Jules go to the apartment of the boys who have stolen Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase (Play it from when they walk into the apartment until they shoot them). This scene works well because there are a number of unanswered questions in it.

Ask students to write a one-paragraph summary of what they’ve seen, giving them +/- 10 minutes. Discuss what they came up with in their summaries, having them read their actual texts aloud. Be sure to note if something they say is analysis. Try to keep them focused on plot so that they understand the genre conventions of summary. Make note of what delineates a good summary on the board (features like tone or objectivity, selectivity or inclusivity, etc).

Show the clip again. Encouraging them to watch closely to see if we missed anything. When it’s finished, ask them to turn their papers over and write a one-paragraph analysis. Make sure to give them at least 10 minutes this time. Discuss their responses again, noting if something is summary. I write the analytical points on the board. This might take a little prodding, but once they get the hang of it, you should have no shortage of responses.

This can also help with the concepts of claims and evidence-- be wary of students jumping to conclusions and ask them for evidence from the text (film) to support their claims. Take one of the responses and start a deeper, discussion-based analysis. What conclusions can we draw about, say, the briefcase in the Pulp Fiction scene? How do we know this?

To adapt this exercise to a workshop:

Ask the students to break into pairs and read each other’s drafts in search of summary, circling the portions they find. Afterwards, have the students discuss how the summary portions might become analysis. Some groups may need a little guidance, others will get it right away.

Purpose:  This short paragraph makes a good handout, or discussion-started on the overhead some time before the final drafts of a paper are due.

Description:  This is not so much an exercise as it is a demonstration for good proofreading skills. I sometimes cut-up and distribute this paragraph to the class, or you could just project it if you have a tech room.

Procedure:  Show/distribute the following for discussion:

According to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t myyaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. this is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter.

Purpose:  This exercise helps students learn to become more effective writers of fiction. It could be quite useful in any course in which a composition assignment focuses on writing fiction. 

Description:  Taking into consideration noted author (and retired FSU faculty member) Janet Burroway’s advice that “only trouble is interesting” and studying her example of turning a dull situation into an interesting one, students practice turning a series of dull situations into interesting ones.

Suggested Time:  This could easily take an entire class period. 

Procedure:  Present the following information to your students. In her book, Writing Fiction, Janet Burroway explains a very important aspect of fiction writing:

Only trouble is interesting. This is not so in life. Life offers periods of comfortable communication, peaceful pleasure, and productive work, all of which are extremely interesting to those involved. But such passages about such times by themselves make for dull reading; they can be used as lulls in an otherwise tense situation, as a resolution, even as a hint that something awful is about to happen. They cannot be used as a whole plot.  (29)

Using this quote as a guiding principle, take the following situations and rewrite them. Turn a dull situation into something worth reading. First, here's an example from Burroway's book:

Example of a dull situation:  Joe goes on a picnic. He finds a beautiful deserted meadow with a lake nearby. The weather is splendid and so is the company. The food's delicious, the water's fine, and the insects have taken the day off. Afterward someone asks Joe how his picnic was. "Terrific," he replies, "really perfect."

Example of a situation worth reading about:  At the picnic, Joe sets his picnic basket on an anthill. Joe and his friends race for the lake to get cold water on the bites, and one of Joe's friends goes too far on the plastic raft, which deflates. He can't swim, and Joe has to save him. On the way in he gashes his foot on a broken bottle. When Joe gets back to the picnic, the ants have taken over the cake, and a possum has demolished the chicken. Just then the sky opens up. When Joe gathers his things to race for the car, he notices an irritated bull has broken through the fence. The others run for it, but because of his bleeding heel the best he can do is hobble. Joe has two choices: try to outrun him or stand perfectly still and hope he's interested only in a moving target.

Now, rewrite the following situations to make them more interesting:

Dull Situation #1:  Joe, his roommate, and his girlfriend take a trip to the bowling ally. They bowl three games together, and each person wins one game. There's a group of three high school boys in the lane next to them who courteously challenge them to a team game. The game ends in a tie, and everyone shakes hands afterwards. Joe even promises to help tutor one of them in math, and his girlfriend buys everyone sodas. They all have a great time.

Dull Situation #2:  Joe and his parents take a trip to the movies. They rarely take these trips together, but Joe is confident they will enjoy whatever film he chooses for them to see. He decides on a romantic drama starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfieffer, and they all enjoy it. Afterward his parents take him out for coffee and pastry. His mother comments on the fine acting, and his father, in a rare display of emotion, cries when asked how he feels about the plot. Joe pats his father on the back, and then leaves them with a feeling of contentment.

Dull Situation #3:  Joe travels across the country to visit an ex-girlfriend. They meet at a restaurant to talk about old times. Both of them are now married, and they each discuss how happy they are in their respective relationships. His ex-girlfriend's husband arrives at the restaurant and buys the three of them a round of drinks. He and Joe have a great time talking about football. They even find ways to give Joe's ex-girlfriend a hard time about the days of her youth. Joe feels no regret about the encounter and arrives at the hotel thinking of his wife. Once he enters his hotel room, he calls her long distance to tell her everything. "I miss you," he says as soon as she picks up the phone.

Purpose:  The goal of Stylistic Revision is to concentrate on sentence construction in later revisions, focusing on concision and detail. It is designed to engage students with their essays on a sentence to sentence level that will enable them to write in a clear, concise, immediate style.

Description:  This exercise should be helpful in the later drafting stages. Students will be required to pay close attention to language and to their closings. By this point, the students should have the bulk of their essays written and are therefore focused on revising and polishing their essays. The design of this exercise is to assist with sentence-by-sentence revision, thereby maximizing clarity and directness.

Suggested Time:  45 minutes

This exercise has two parts:

Part I: Avoiding Passive Voice [Create passive voice handout with examples if you feel it is necessary.]

• Pass out individual copies of  “Another Fish Story”  to students at the beginning of class. Ask them to take 10 minutes to read over it, underlining instances of passive voice and also any striking similes or metaphors.
• Have a brief discussion about what they underlined, including a brief discussion of passive voice, using examples from the essay.
• Students should pick a paragraph of their choice and rewrite with the knowledge taken from discussion (and their own) using active, immediate language.
• Share with class!

Part II: Ending the Essay 

• Now discuss the closing paragraphs of the essay, describing what’s working, what they notice, what strikes them, what doesn’t, etc. Discuss ways to tighten the language, avoiding clichés and generalities. Also discuss how to close the essay without being conclusive, avoiding the traditional modes of restating what’s already been said, etc.
• After discussion have students rewrite the last paragraph avoiding clichés, etc. implementing also what was discussed in Part I.

Have students implement this exercise in their own work for the next revision.

Additional Information:  This exercise is a lesson in language, not in grammar.

Purpose:  To prepare students for workshopping and the writing of their first paper. An easy exercise for demonstrating descriptive writing - and descriptive responding.

Suggested Time:  An entire class session

Description:  This is a way of showing your students which subjects and what language are worthwhile for the paper assignment they are drafting, and also what you expect from workshop sessions. You'll write a 3-page draft (not too long to go over in a class period) of the paper your students are writing to go over with the class in order to model both workshopping and what is possible for the assignment (typically the first assignment). This can be a good exercise to do after the class has read Rick Straub's "Responding, Really Responding, to Student Writing".

Procedure:  Write a 3 page draft on the same topics your students are writing. Experienced TA’s may want to use past student papers of In  Our Own Words  but I advocate writing one yourself. If you write the paper then you can make sure it has all the positive and negative qualities that you desire. Don’t be concerned about the time involved, it is not extensive--I write mine in less than half an hour--just don’t proofread it (remember, you want there to be stupid mistakes and sloppy, undescriptive writing). You can also use the same paper over and over again in later semesters. Be creative, you ask that of your students. If this is a personal paper assignment, and you don’t want to share any moments with your students, make one up, or don’t tell them that you wrote it.

Overall it is a "show, don’t tell" exercise. Rather than tell my students what to do I show them in my own paper. This is an excellent way to show them what types of subject matter and language you think are worthwhile. I want my students to feel as though they can and should write anything they want so I try to choose personal (often embarrassing but serious) topics. I also show them uses of language, such as ways to use curse words effectively in an essay. I find next to nothing offensive and use this as a way of showing that.

However, this exercise can be tailor-made to show whatever you don’t want (repetitive, redundant, too long, too boring, spelling mistakes, grammar errors). However, at the core use some decent writing and some good techniques. The essay I use (for the first assignment) uses a flashback and "show don’t tell" techniques to try to tell the story of an entire night in actual time of a few minutes (both flashbacks and showing are new to and risky for students). I tried to make an opener that would suck-in the reader and make them want to read more (another thing I emphasize in my classes). I also try to get them to use interesting or at least uncommon titles (thus the name of the exercise) that add to the paper. It also works well to make a first and second draft of your paper and show students how to workshop and the process of drafting at the same time. Leave the second draft open for improvements.

The Workshop:

Project the example paper on the overhead screen and workshop it as a class, going paragraph by paragraph. You may wish to print the draft out and use the light board, as actually writing on the draft is helpful for modeling good feedback. Another option is to stand at the computer station and demonstrate the COMMENTS function in Word as you project the document. Choose the option that best replicates the eventual workshop situation your students will soon be in.

As you workshop, praise comments that are useful and don’t let students give responses like "I like that" or "I don’t like that--it sucks." Make them tell you WHY and ELABORATE on why they don’t like something. In essence, show them what you want from them as workshop responders. My classes always found things that I had missed in my own writing, and more often than not, found everything that I was hoping they would find. It is usually one of the best things I do all semester long.

I usually close by asking them how they would respond to this as a first draft. I ask if it has potential, should be scrapped, etc. Then I tell them how I would respond--this tends to give them as idea of what to expect.

Purpose:  The purpose of this exercise is to help students recognize the importance of titles, showing students that there needs to be a balance of creativity and information.

Description:  This is a class discussion activity that begins with analyzing the title of an 18th century chapbook, and then asks students, as a class or in groups, to examine book titles. Finally, students exchange their own essays with titles in order to critique the effectiveness of each title.

Suggested Time:  40 min

Procedure:  Start by reading aloud, or writing on the board (if you have an interactive classroom there are even better ways) the following title. I make a point of not completing it in writing but reading the last of it instead.

"A very surprising narrative of a young woman, discovered in a rocky-cave, after having been taken by the savage Indians of the wilderness in the year 1777, and seeing no human being for the space of nine years. In a letter from a gentleman to a friend."

[A chapbook from America, between 1788-1851. Chapbooks were the Reader’s Digest of the period; cheaply printed and pedaled by traveling booksellers.]

Possible “script” when reading the title:  In this story, “A most beautiful young Lady sitting near the mouth of a cave” [oh, I bet, after 9 years she musta been somethin’ else] is discovered by two travelers in the wilderness. After recovering from a faint upon seeing them, “Heavens! Where am I?” she exclaims, and proceeds to tell them that she and her lover had been attacked by Indians, who murdered her lover and captured her. She chewed threw her bonds [this sound fishy to anyone else?], and in order to escape: “I did not long deliberate but took up the hatchet he had brought and, summoning resolution I, with three blows [she took note to count them, apparently], effectually put an end to his existence [axes will do that].” She managed also to lop off his head, quarter the corpse, and drag it half-a-mile to some foliage she figured could use the fertilizer, and hid it. She’d been growing Indian corn ever since. Of course, once returned home by her rescuers, she is reunited with her father, who’s so happy to see her again he dies and leaves her a handsome fortune. (From Popular Culture in American History, Jim Cullen ed.)

Ask questions like, “Boy, wonder what happens in that story!? Do you want to read it? What’s wrong with it? How does it lose your attention? I explain that print culture has changed in these decades, that books then couldn’t afford advertising or enticing covers to inspire readership, and that no print could be spared for a back cover description. So, the title became the description. People also had much longer attention spans and fewer competing stimuli!”

This leads into the present day, and how this story could be adapted – or what stories/movies they know of that seem to have borrowed this theme. How can we make it better? What would you title the story?

After we’ve exhausted this discussion, I move on to titles of the present, and how/why they work. On the board, write the following title and discuss it:

• How does this title work?
• Does IT make you curious? Why?
• What things do we associate with the term “it” (It’s gonna get you! It’s out there!)
• How does the size of the book make you ironically interested in terms of the title? (book huge, title small = something’s going on with “it”!)

Then, either as a class in groups ask them to examine what the titles make them think and what they imagine the cover of the books would look like.

Lord of the Flies

• Oxymoron creates interest
• What do we associate flies with? (dead things, feces, etc) How does this make the word “lord” more intriguing?
• Carl Hiaasen’s collected editorials from the Miami Herald
• How does it grab attention? Why?
• Dual function, it’s also a statement of Carl’s personal philosophy of metropolitan journalism. “Turn over rocks. Dig out the dirt. Kick ass.”

Something Wicked This Way Comes

• Speaks for itself: what’s coming?
• Turn of phrase is out of the ordinary, and is both pleasing and dissonant to the ear.

All the King’s Men

• Nursery rhyme plays on our common knowledge and we recall the rest of the tale, makes us curious about how this one will turn out
• Begins in mid-phrase, requiring us to fill it in, leaving us hanging 

Where the Red Fern grows

• Where? Curiosity’s raised by implication. Who cares about ferns? There has to be something else going on there, we think.
• The color red paints sinister pictures in the mind. 
• We recall the common phrase “G.I. Joe” and are interested by the switch.
• We know enough about this story by inference to maintain some interest. 

"Let’s Get World Serious" 

• Title of a Sport’s Illustrated article, by Rick Riley.
• How does the switch of the word “series” to the near “serious” have an effect?
• How does it target its appropriate audience – sports fans?

I complete the discussion by extending the invitation: Can you guys think of any good ones, and why are they good?

Then, ask students to exchange their essays and essays titles with each other and critique the titles based on how interesting they are and how well it relates to the essay’s topic.

Purpose:  This exercise stimulates students to enrich their descriptive writing by using a plain object and writing about it in an extravagant way—using lots of detail, metaphor, and imagery. It makes students develop and possibly appreciate a creative approach to the writing method.

Description:  Students will take a normal object and write a creative description and narrative about the object of their choice. By following a set of questions provided by the instructor, students will write a prose style response – not just a list or catalog.

Suggested Time:  30 – 35 minutes

Procedure:  Students should pick an object that they have easy and tangible access – a pen, teddy bear, a washcloth, ID card, whatever they desire. They should then write a creative response using the following questions or a similar format: 

• You look around the room and see your object. How well can you see it? Where is the light coming from?
• You walk over to your object. How many steps did it take?
• Your object is lying next to several other things. One of these things reminds you of something or someone else. What does it remind you of?
• Pick up the object. How heavy is it? Can you toss it in the air?
• Put the object close to your eyes, so close that it becomes blurry. What do you see? (tiny bumps? little lines?)
• Put your object against your ear. Does it make a sound? What does that sound (or lack of sound) remind you of?
• Put your object under your nose. What does it smell like? What does the scent remind you of?
• While you have the object this close to your face, you might as well taste it. Go ahead, stick out your tongue. What is that taste? What does it remind you of?
• You are getting tired of this exercise. Get rid of your object. Dispose of it somehow. How did you get rid of it and how do you feel now that it is gone?

In order for students to successfully complete the exercise, each question must be answered in sentence form. Encourage students to be creative in the description of the object and its purpose.

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Take a Second Look: Effective Strategies for Essay Revision in College

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Writing an excellent essay for college can be an overwhelming task — it needs to be flawless, interesting , and engaging, should include credible examples, and be devoid of grammatical errors.

Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?

Well, it is, and the only way to make your efforts count is by revising your essay before submitting it.

Revising, proofreading, and editing can be a big task if you don’t know how to go about it. You need to ensure that you understand how to revise an essay in college and follow the proper process for a smooth-sailing revision.

In this article, you’ll learn how to do a thorough revision of your essay to score well.

Order Now: High-Scoring, Error-Free Essay Written from Scratch

How to revise an essay in college: 8 best practices.

Regardless of how good a writer you are, you should always revise your essay before considering it to be completed.

So, don't miss out on this pivotal step, and make the important changes that are required. Let’s take a look at eight essential tips to keep in mind while revising an essay for college.

1. Take a break from the essay

After finishing your first essay draft, keep the paper aside and take time away from it before you start to revise, edit and proofread the essay.

This is important because when you take a break, you will be able to spot errors that you may have missed if you were to immediately start revising your paper after completion.

It is good practice to go for a walk, listen to music, watch a movie, take a nap or do something that would distract your mind after completing your essay. Give your mind a break, and then come back to read the essay from a fresh perspective.

2. Read the essay out loud

Writing an essay leaves you tired. Instead of proofreading it in your mind, why not read it out loud?

This would most probably result in you missing out on errors, mistakes that change the meaning of a phrase, arguments that are illogical or out of place, wordy paragraphs, or any sentence structures that need a bit more clarity and refining.

You can also ask a friend, your peers, or even a family member to read your essay out loud so that you can hear it clearly and spot obvious mistakes.

3. Proofread in parts

The entire process of proofreading and editing the text can be very overwhelming, even more, when you have to proofread long documents. To avoid any confusion or panic, it is advisable to select one paragraph after another and proofread it section-wise.

It is best to take your time and not edit your essay last minute or in a hurry, as this could cause a lot of silly mistakes.

Always keep in mind to edit your essay before you proofread it because when you proofread, you will be required to make any necessary edits or changes to your draft.

Proofreading before editing can be counterproductive and would only further waste your time.

4. Ensure your essay has a logical flow

Once your ideas and points have been added, think about the order of your essay and how you would want to present it.

To write a quality essay, you need to ensure to have an interesting introduction paragraph with a catchy thesis statement, thorough, free-flowing body paragraphs with examples, statistics, and facts to support your argument for the paper, and a clear conclusion paragraph that summarizes the entire purpose of the essay.

Check for the addition of transition words for a smoother and more logical flow of concepts and ideas. The length of the assignment should be concise and clear, as well as make sure to not use slang or overly complicated words. Instead, use simple terms for easy understanding.

5. Ask for feedback

Ask your family members or peers to read your essay and give you honest feedback on it. Consider asking questions like:

• What do they understand from the essay?
• Were the arguments clearly stated?
• Did they like the essay or not? Why?
• What portion of the essay did they find most compelling?
• Was there a phrase or sentence that stood out to them?
• If they could make any changes, what changes would they make?
• What do they think the essay says about you?
• Has the essay impacted or influenced them in any way? If yes, then how?
• Was there anything missing from the content of the essay?

This feedback is valuable and necessary for you to enhance the quality and readability of your essay. Your peers can offer you guidance, advice, and suggestions that you can choose to take if you think they will help your paper.

Try not to be defensive about your essay, and make sure you only make a few people read your essay. Bringing multiple people in to read your paper will confuse you, and you might miss out on a few important recommendations.

6. Fix grammar and spellings

The most common mistakes made while writing any kind of essay are grammatical errors and silly spelling mistakes. Your essay may have all the information and might be absolutely perfect, but your grades can slip drastically if your professors find multiple grammar and spelling errors throughout your essay’s content.

Having these mistakes shows that you may not have worked too hard to revise or use a spell checker on your essay. Always take note of the feedback given to you by your peers about these kinds of mistakes.

You can also run your document through the online grammar checker, as it is a free tool available to check, identify and provide helpful feedback regarding grammar, sentence structure, spelling mistakes, and even the clarity or engagement of your entire essay.

7. Review your sources

Take note of utilizing credible and authentic primary and secondary sources for your essay. Avoid using information sources like Wikipedia, and browse through research papers, online sources, academic essays, and newspaper reports as your reference sources.

It is also very important to properly cite your sources in your essay, and mention them in the bibliography because if you neglect or miss out on citing your sources, your essay would be considered to be plagiarised.

After completing your essay, review your sources to see if all of them are included and also match the information present in your essay. Check to see if the source has been credited to the essay’s content.

8. Check for plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious offense in all academic institutions. If your content is not cited with credible sources, it would be considered to be unoriginal and copied.

Every institution requires originality and unique ideas from their students, and if caught plagiarising, your essay can be dismissed completely, resulting in a failing grade for that assignment.

You can also be banned from giving further assignments or tests if you’ve been caught plagiarised work multiple times.

There are also multiple plagiarism-checking websites online, and you could use them for a quick screening of your paper to check for any uncited sources. Some of them include the following:

• DupliChecker

This will save you from literary theft that colleges deem as unbearable and will deliver a well-scanned, original, and quality essay with absolutely zero ideas or phrases that are plagiarised. Some of these websites and tools are free to use but most of them require you to subscribe or download the premium version.

Every student knows how important those “last-minute checks” are just as you’re about to turn your assignment in.

It is truly one of the worst feelings to realize a mistake in your assignment after you have already submitted it, so to not go through that again -- revise, revise and revise again! That little more effort and time may take your project to a whole new level, a level you’ve been aspiring for but just missing out on.

So take that time out, put in that extra effort, and use those last essential minutes of your deadline in a way you won’t regret. Revise and make your essay as good as it can get using these important tips on revising an essay in college.

One of the best parts about working with Writers Per Hour's paper editors is that our writers do multiple revisions before they submit the essay to meet your requirements and deadline. So, you can be sure to receive high-quality papers that are original and free of errors.

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We aim for a tool so precise that it becomes possible to unquestioningly adopt its recommendations and still come out ahead — with stronger, tighter prose. Better to be quiet and authoritative than loud and unreliable.

Relax, focus, write your next masterpiece...

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Whether you need a distraction-free environment, some chill relaxing sounds or a pomodoro timer to manage your time we got you covered.

Got questions? We have answers.

No. Typely is completely free and we plan on keeping it that way. We are considering some advanced features however that might be available under a premium plan.

The only limit we have applied thus far is on the number of characters you can submit and that is being set at a maximum of 50,000.

In theory yes but that will require a lot of work and professionals dedicated for this job. We are considering a way of letting the community participate somehow.

Typely does not do grammar checking because it's hard and almost impossible to get right. The aim for Typely is to be precise and reliable.

Example of a College Essay that Needs Revision

When writing an essay for college it’s, always a good strategy to look at examples of other people’s work. Below is a college application essay prompt to which a student provided a sample draft.  He went to a college consultant for revision suggestions which are included.  You may also want to use an English teacher, a guidance counselor, or a knowledgeable adult to help you revise.

A friend or parent will probably not give you the honest feed back you need.

The revision comments at the end.

The Prompt:

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

The Essay Writing Sample:

One significant experience I had was when I camped out in the wilderness with my dad for two weeks last summer. That was a very buggy experience, but more than the left-over scars from branch wounds and brambles are left with me. I think I grew up on that trip.

I had never camped before and now my father thought it would be good for us to bond, away from civilization. We packed and headed out not for a camp ground with tent sites and shower rooms. We headed for the back regions of swamps and raspberry bushes, at least a thousand miles from home and regular communication.

We actually had to walk into the pond where we would set up our home-away-from home. What a trek, it was terrible, and when we finally arrived, I was already set to leave. But, no. We had to unpack our gear, prepare the ground, put up the tent, and then think about food.

That wasn’t going to be a quick trip to the frig for ice cream and soda. We needed a camp fire, a place to put our staples so bears wouldn’t get into them, and the meal itself—trout. That meant we had to get our fishing gear ready and wade out to the depth so cold streams and running leeches! YUCK.

It was a good 45 minutes later, while the sun set and the flies bit, that we got our first bites. I was able to get two trout, and dad finished off with two more. We gutted them and fried them—delicious, I must say. It was then we sat and talked over the plans for the next day.

Those two weeks were difficult. I had to do everything from scratch, even build my own out house. I had to carry water, find berries, get wood for the fire, dry out wet clothes from a night of rain, even mend things that broke, like my fishing pole.

I learned something about myself. I could survive. I didn’t need my cell phone or my TV or my CDs, even my friends and my car to get along. Things might not have been the most luxurious for me out in the back country of nowhere, but I was doing pretty well with a full stomach, good sleep, invigorating exercise, and yep, a book, which dad had insisted I bring along.

I also had dad. He and I had never really talked like we did over those two weeks. It’s amazing how many things had been left unsaid over the years after he divorced my mom. He told me about how much the divorce hurt, how he and mom had met and fell in love, how much he loved me.

I got to ask him what caused the divorce, how he felt about being with me know, how he felt about mom, and his new wife.

He explained it all, and it made some sense. The divorce didn’t happen out of no-where. There had been problems even before I was born. And, they didn’t hate me or each other. They had good and bad feelings and memories, just like I did. I began to see my dad, and my mom, too, through different eyes, and I saw them as people apart from me.

That was a revelation, an adult one, that it wasn’t all about me and that things don’t stay the same or perfect all the time.

When dad and I left the woods, we were still sweating and the deer flies were still biting, but I felt different, I was stronger. And, that strength was something that came not only from knowing how to cook my own food, lug armfuls of wood three or four times a day, and make my own safe and cozy place in the world, no matter where.

It came from an inner sense of seeing things as they are. Life isn’t just out of a magazine with the best appliances and the nicest furniture.

There are other things in life, like dirty floors, and relationships that don’t always work, and meals that have to be made. But, that’s not all bad. (697 words)

The Comments for Revisions:

There are so many good things in this essay: a sense of real insight; a voice, that is, this sounds like a real high school student writing with some of his own ways of speaking; good development, a little humor.

Striking problems are a tired, like-everyone-else’s opening that will not catch the reader or let the reader know right away there is an interesting voice in this piece; a weak ending; a bit of rambling or disorder in the whole essay; and spots where there is need for more vivid and specific detail.

There may also be more of a sense of describing what happened than explaining why this trip was significant—a question of the right emphasis. It is also a bit too long. Its’ okay to go over 500 words, but not 200 words over, especially if there are sections that can be left out.

Suggestions

• Start with the walk into the camp. Put the reader there with you right away with good specific detail and give the reader a sense of who you are. Let the essay “tell” that this is a significant event for you; don’t repeat back the words of the prompt. The first two paragraphs can be condensed into one easily.
• The next two paragraphs, about being at camp, might be condensed too. Try using the same detail but less of it to capture the time spent at camp and all you did from day one through till the end. You might also want to take the idea of strength and confidence from the last paragraph and fit it in with your description of these things you had to do.
• The next paragraph works, but you could also take the idea of seeing your dad, and mom, differently, from the last paragraph and fit it in with your description of the new way you got to know your dad . You might also mention, for more detail, how you saw your dad differently not only from your conversations with him but also from seeing him as a teacher or modeling independent and reasonable behavior camping.
• Now you can repeat your lessons about growing up to bring home the significance of your experience, but keep the idea of the path in and the path out which works well.

To see the actual revision, go to “Revising Your College Application Essay Can make A Real Difference.”

The admission essay is an important step in the college application process just as  preparing to answer basic questions during the college interview is.

Tip! You might want to have an experienced professional look over your essay so they can revise your essay to perfection.

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About the author.

Content created by retired College Admissions consultants.