Revising and Editing Your Thesis When You’re Sick of Looking At It
Revision can be tedious, especially for long papers. Sometimes we get so sick of looking at our
writing we can’t stand to read for errors, or we have already read our papers so often that we’re
too familiar with the words to notice small mistakes.
Today we will discuss a technique for editing your thesis or dissertation when you’re sick of
looking at it. This technique is borrowed from Wendy Belcher’s Writing your Journal Article in
12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success, where you can find a more comprehensive
list of suggestions and explanations.
Microstructure Editing The “Wendy Belcher Diagnostic” (237-262)
One convenient way to find small mistakes without re-reading is the “Belcher Diagnostic Test”:
Using your computer’s “Find All” for words that indicate common errors, and then addressing
those errors individually. Below are some of the Belcher’s recommended searches. You might
also use this technique to catch other frequent errors, such as inconsistent verb tenses.
Words that Might Need to be Cut: Cutting might help reduce common problems.
 “And” or “or”  “and” or “or” usually signal:
o Doubling (using two words that have the same meaning)
 “Important and necessary”  Do we need both words?
o Lists (that might be made simpler)
 “Every man, woman, and child in the audience”  “The entire
audience”
o Run-on Sentences Cut the sentence into two, or add punctuation
 “That” and “who” (Especially with verbs of “to be”—is/was/has/are) You can usually
delete these words/phrases
o She argued that there is a way to edit more simply.  She argued there is a
simpler way to edit.
o The man who is wearing the red coat.  The man in the red coat.
 Prepositions: (as, at, by, for, from, in, more, of, on, onto, with)
o Stacking prepositional phrases can lead to wordy sentences. You want to avoid
more than 2 consecutive prepositions.
 Wordy: The work of Dr. Brown on neuro-rehabilitation has lead to
important discoveries in the field of brain surgery.
 More Concise: Dr. Brown’s neuro-rehabilitation work lead to important
brain surgery discoveries. (We still need prepositions; the trick is reducing
them)
Words that Might Need to be Added: Overusing pronouns often makes writing unclear.
Search for these pronouns and evaluating them one-at-a-time.
 “This,” “these,” and “those”
 “They,” “them,” “theirs,” “it,” “its”
Reference:
Belcher, Wendy Laura. Writing your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic
Publishing Success. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009. Print.
Patrick Russell, February 14, 2014