Finishing Touches
A Writing Center Workshop
Do You Meet The Assignment Guidelines?
 Double check your rubric, and the instructions
provided by your professor before you begin editing.
 Do you meet all the requirements?
 Are all the necessary topics addressed and
supported?
 Is there anything else that needs to be added, or
supported?
Major and Minor Edits
 Before you begin the final editing process for your
paper, make sure your paper contains the following:
 A well-developed focus (thesis) statement.
 Organized and developed ideas and concepts that
expand on your focus statement.
 Logical transitions between ideas.
 Proper support for your ideas
 A properly cited references page.
Major Edits
 Major structural edits may be necessary for some
portions of your paper. To decide if you need to
make major edits, ask the following of your paper:
 Is there a central focus, or purpose to my paper?
 Is my paper organized?
 Are my subtopics properly supported?
 If you answered no to any of the above, you may
need to make some major edits.
Honing Your Focus
 If you have questions on focus, the following
questions may help.
 What is it that your paper is trying to say?
 What is my goal, my purpose for writing this paper?
 What is the central issue at stake, and what are you
trying to prove, or disprove?
Editing Your Organization
 Organization is key to an effective paper. To make
sure your paper is well organized the following
questions may help.
 Does your paper make logical transitions?
 Is there some relation between the topics in your
paper?
 Are all the like ideas grouped together in your paper?
Developing Your Topics
 In addition to having a strong focus, it is also critical
to properly develop your subtopics.
 Have your provided all the information necessary to
make a strong argument?
 Have you addressed possible counterpoints to your
argument?
 Are all your subtopics working together to support
your primary claim?
Minor Edits
Proof-Reading Your Paper
 Try reading your paper backwards from the last
sentence to the first.
 Reading it this way allows you to take each line out of
context, and really focus in on errors at the sentence
level.
 Proof-reading serves the purpose of making sure
your paper makes sense at the sentence level and in
terms of spelling, and grammar.
Minor Edits
Documentation Style
 Is your paper properly formatted in the style
assigned by your instructor? Typically MLA or APA
style.
 For concerns with documentation style, it is best to
review the sample paper.
 Prior to beginning a paper, it may be best to also
make use of the paper templates available on the
Writing Center’s web site.