Revising and Editing Your
Research Paper
Self-Revision

In the revision step, focus on the
following questions and strategies:

Assignment requirements: Did you
fulfill all the expectations for the
assignment? Reread the directions to be
sure.
Self-Revision

Audience and purpose:

Does your content take your audience and
their skill levels into consideration? Have you
fulfilled your initial purpose to inform,
persuade, or convince your reader about a
certain viewpoint?
Self-Revision

Content and organization:

Does the overall organization of the
paper make sense logically? Review your
outline again, if necessary. As you read
your paper, revise content where
necessary. Rearrange words and
sentences for a stronger affect, and
rewrite passages that may not be clear.
Self-Revision-Content and
Organization

Introduction:

Does your introduction catch the reader’s
attention? You can catch your reader’s attention in
a number of ways: by telling a story, providing a
shocking statistic or quotation, or explaining an
interesting fact. Have you included your thesis
statement at the end of the introduction? Have you
avoided jumping right into the arguments (the
supporting evidence for the body of the paper)?
Self-Revision-Content and
Organization

Supporting details:

Is each topic sentence thoroughly explained
through the use of examples, reasons, facts, data,
case studies, stories, and so forth? Have you taken
counterarguments into account? Is your writing free
of bias and fallacies?
Self-Revision-Content and
Organization

Visuals:

Have you included visuals that enhance your
arguments and explanations? Is the information in
the visuals adequately explained and clearly
conveyed?
Self-Revision-Content and
Organization

Conclusion:

Does your conclusion neatly wrap up the paper
while making an impact on the reader? Have you
avoided simply repeating your introduction? You
can say something interesting or memorable in
your conclusion, but again, avoid using the
conclusion to add new information or to support
your thesis.
Self-Revision-Content and
Organization

Transitions:

Have you used transitions to move readers
smoothly from paragraph to paragraph; from
sentence to sentence; and from your own writing
into quotations, paraphrases, or summaries?
Self-Revision

Unity and coherence:

Does every paragraph have a topic
sentence? Do all the supporting
paragraphs relate to this one main idea?
Is the writing clear, concise, and
understandable?
Self-Revision

Tone and vocabulary:

Are your voice and tone consistent throughout
the paper? Your paper needs to be written from
a third-person point of view (no I or you
pronouns) and without slang or contractions. To
create a more lively tone, try writing a variety of
sentence types. Replace words that are too
advanced for your audience, not descriptive
enough, or vague.
Self-Revision

Documentation:

Does every paraphrase, summary, and
quotation have an in-text citation? Are all
references cited in the paper also listed
on a references page at the end of the
paper? It may help to print your paper
and highlight all the passages that
include sources to ensure each citation
has a corresponding reference.
Self-Revision

Paper formatting:

Have you ensured that the paper’s font,
margins, and style conform to LakeSumter Community College’s guidelines?
Self-Revision

Title:

Is the title of the paper catchy enough to
make the audience want to read your
paper?


Not catchy: Boys and Girls in School
Catchy: Closing the Gender Gap in Our
Schools
Editing

Editing is the final step in the revision
process. Editing involves looking for
technical errors in your paper such as
spelling, grammar, sentence structure,
and punctuation:
Editing

Sentence structure:

Have you avoided fragments
(sentences that are too short because
they do not constitute a complete
thought) and run-ons (sentences that are
too long because they continue without a
proper punctuation mark or break)?
Editing

Punctuation and capitalization:

Are capital letters, periods, commas,
apostrophes, and other punctuation
marks used correctly?
Editing

Spelling and word usage:

Always use the spell-check tool on your
computer. The spell-checker does not
pick up every misspelled or misused
word, so be sure to review your paper
thoroughly for spelling errors.
Editing

Inoffensive language:

Be sure your writing refers to sex, race,
gender, and religion equally and fairly.