Moving Beyond Draft One: How to Self-Edit and Revise
A. Re-vision—what does that mean to us
Seeing what you’ve written from another perspective
Looking at your writing from a critical eye
Making sense out of what you’ve written
B. Two Sections of Revision
1. Content
Structurally, is your paper easy to follow?
Do we understand what each point is trying to argue?
Does it build off of the thesis statement?
Example:
Thesis Statement: Obesity is the leading health issue in the United States.
1st Paragraph Sentence Error: Obesity is defined as being immensely overweight.
Why 1st Paragraph Sentence Doesn’t Work: We are not trying to define obesity;
we are only trying to prove why it’s a major health issue.
1st Paragraph Sentence Correction: People do not pay enough attention to what it is
they are eating.
Why 1st Paragraph Sentence Works: It’s an argumentative statement branched off
of the thesis statement.
Note: During the revision process, it’s important that your paper is structurally sound;
the arguments in your body paragraphs build off of your thesis statement, but the
paper has to be coherent and easy to follow.
2. Grammar/Punctuation
After solidifying our arguments, it’s important we go back and fix our grammatical
errors.
Ways to Self-Edit
Say your sentences out loud
Step back from writing for a few hours
Get a 2nd opinion
C. Why Revision is important
1st drafts are our opportunities to get our ideas on the page, but just because they are on
the page doesn’t mean they make sense.
Revision is our opportunity to make sense of our ideas, so that they are understandable to
others.
It allows us to reflect on our mistakes, so we decrease the changes of making them again.