Revising
The Revision Process
Revision literally means to re-see or re-envision a piece of writing. This process may involve adding, rearranging, removing, and replacing (ARRR) words, sentences, and ideas. Since writing is recursive, revising may require revisiting the prewriting stage. A recursive process means that you will create, edit, and revise and return at various points to all three of these stages. Writing is not a strictly linear act, with a beginning, middle, and end. In fact, revision will help you understand that the writing process is as important as the writing product!
Adding
What else does the reader need to know? If the essay doesn’t meet the required word or page count, what areas can be expanded? Where would further explanation help key points to be more clear? This is a good time to go back to the prewriting notes and look for ideas that weren’t included in the draft.
Rearranging
Even when writers carefully plan their writing, they may need to rearrange sections for their essays to flow better.
Removing
Some ideas just don’t work or don’t contribute enough to the overall goal of the essay. Often when writers delete excess words or paragraphs, the ideas become clearer.
Replacing
Vivid details help bring writing to life. Writers need to look for strong examples and quotable passages from outside sources to support their arguments. If particular paragraphs aren’t working well, writers need to try rewriting them.
Other Useful Strategies
Reverse Outlining
In reverse outlining, the student reads through the written text and notes, noting down the topic of each paragraph. This way, the student can review if each paragraph has a clear focus and if each paragraph fits the overall organization of the paper. More on reverse outlining is available at The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL), “Reverse Outlining: An Exercise for Taking Notes and Revising Your Work.”
Reading Aloud
The act of reading one’s essay aloud allows the student to “hear it” in the way a reader will. This act permits the writer to slow down and pay attention to all words in the essay. They get a sense of what a reader experiences, where words are clear and effective, and where they are weak. Poorly structured sentences are hard to read out loud, indicating that this would be a good place to start revising. This technique is a great precursor for receiving feedback from others. It also helps writers take responsibility for their writing.
Peer and Instructor Feedback
No one becomes a good writer in a vacuum. Sometimes, writing is done for ourselves, but more often, writing is done to connect to others, to share thoughts, and to communicate something others need to know. At this stage of the process, it’s important for writers to get the measure of how well their writing works for readers that they want to entertain, educate, or persuade. Showing the writing to someone else is essential. This might be done in a writers’ circle or just with a friend who is good with words and can be asked for feedback. It’s best to show our work to several people to get more than one opinion. Receiving feedback helps writers discover the strengths in their writing as well as areas that may be improved.
After receiving feedback—whether through track changes in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, on paper, or verbally in a peer-review session—the writer can discuss the comments with the reviewer. It’s important that a writer consider these comments. Every reader comes from a different point of view, and the writer may not agree with everything that is said by various readers. Sometimes, comments will be contradictory. It is the writer’s responsibility to ask further and decide how to use comments received. A community that embraces and nurtures its members through the revision process works to communicate feedback so that everyone can grow and learn.
Successful college students utilize their resources, specifically their instructors and peers, to get feedback. Tutoring is an effective means by which students can receive knowledgeable one-on-one feedback about their writing. It can also be an effective way to help manage time.
Peer mentors provide students with additional one-on-one and group support in writing classrooms or during office hours. The peer mentor has had the previous experience of completing similar writing assignments, and students find it helpful when they revise with their expertise in mind.
Something to Remember
Handling Peer and Instructor Reviews
In many situations, you will be required to have at least one of your peers review your essay (and you will, in turn, review at least one peer’s essay). Even if you’re not required to exchange drafts with a peer, it’s simply essential at this point to have another pair of eyes, so find a classmate or friend and ask them to look over your draft. In other cases, your instructor may be intervening at this point with ungraded but evaluative commentary on your draft. Whatever the system, before you post or trade your draft for review, reflect on your original statement of purpose to ensure you are giving a clear statement of your desired voice, audience, message, tone, attitude, and reception. Also, consider preparing a descriptive outline showing how the essay actually turned out and comparing that with your original plan, or consider writing a brief narrative describing how the essay developed from idea to execution. Finally, include any other questions or concerns you have about your draft so that your peer reader(s) or instructor can give you useful, tailored feedback. These reflective statements and documents could be attached with your draft as part of a writer’s memo. Remember, the more guidance you give your readers, regardless of whether they are your peers or your instructor, the more they will be able to help you.
When you receive suggestions for content changes from your instructors, try to put aside any tendencies to react defensively so that you can consider their ideas for revisions with an open mind. If you are accustomed only to getting feedback from instructors that is accompanied by a grade, you may need to get used to the difference between evaluation and judgment. In college settings, instructors often prefer to intervene most extensively after you have completed a first draft, with evaluative commentary that tends to be suggestive, forward-looking, and free of a final quantitative judgment (like a grade). If you read your instructors’ feedback in those circumstances as final, you can miss the point of the exercise. You’re supposed to do something with this sort of commentary, not just read it as the justification for a (non-existent) grade.
Sometimes, peers think they’re supposed to “sound like an English teacher,” so they fall into the trap of “correcting” your draft, but in most cases, the prompts used in college-level peer reviewing discourage that sort of thing. In many situations, your peers will give you ideas that will add value to your paper, and you will want to include them. In other situations, your peers’ ideas will not really work into the plan you have for your paper. It is not unusual for peers to offer ideas that you may not want to implement. Remember, your peers’ ideas are only suggestions, and it is your essay, and you are the person who will make the final decisions. If your peers happen to be a part of the audience to which you are writing, they can sometimes give you invaluable ideas. And if they’re not, take the initiative to find outside readers who might actually be a part of your audience.
When you are reviewing a peer’s essay, keep in mind that the author likely knows more about the topic than you do, so don’t question content unless you are certain of your facts. Also, do not suggest changes just because you would do it differently or because you want to give the impression that you are offering ideas. Only suggest changes that you seriously think would make the essay stronger.
- Excerpted from “Drafting and Revising,” by Will Rogers, is available in Writing Rhetorically: Framing First Year Writing. CC BY 4.0.
