what should you revise after you have made changes to the individual paragraphs in your writing?

Rewriting is the essence of writing well—where the game is won or lost.
—William Zinsser

What this handout is about

This handout will motivate you lot to revise your drafts and give you strategies to revise finer.

What does information technology mean to revise?

Revision literally means to "see again," to await at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing procedure of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose.

But I idea revision was just fixing the commas and spelling

Nope. That's called proofreading. It'south an important step before turning your paper in, simply if your ideas are predictable, your thesis is weak, and your organization is a mess, then proofreading will simply exist putting a ring-help on a bullet wound. When y'all finish revising, that's the time to proofread. For more information on the subject, see our handout on proofreading.

How most if I but reword things: look for improve words, avert repetition, etc.? Is that revision?

Well, that's a function of revision chosen editing. It'south some other important last footstep in polishing your work. But if you oasis't thought through your ideas, then rephrasing them won't make any difference.

Why is revision of import?

Writing is a process of discovery, and you don't ever produce your all-time stuff when you first get started. And then revision is a risk for you to await critically at what you accept written to meet:

if it'southward really worth saying,
if it says what you wanted to say, and
if a reader will understand what you lot're proverb.

The procedure

What steps should I use when I brainstorm to revise?

Hither are several things to do. But don't try them all at i time. Instead, focus on two or iii principal areas during each revision session:

Look awhile after you've finished a draft before looking at it over again. The Roman poet Horace thought ane should wait nine years, but that'south a chip much. A day—a few hours even—will work. When yous exercise return to the typhoon, be honest with yourself, and don't be lazy. Ask yourself what you lot really call back virtually the newspaper.
Equally The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers puts it, "Call back BIG, don't tinker" (61). At this stage, y'all should be concerned with the large issues in the paper, not the commas.
Cheque the focus of the paper: Is it advisable to the assignment? Is the topic too big or too narrow? Exercise you stay on track through the unabridged paper?
Recall honestly about your thesis: Practice you still concur with information technology? Should it be modified in calorie-free of something you discovered as you wrote the paper? Does it make a sophisticated, provocative indicate, or does it but say what anyone could say if given the same topic? Does your thesis generalize instead of taking a specific position? Should it be inverse altogether? For more information visit our handout on thesis statements.
Call up nigh your purpose in writing: Does your introduction state clearly what you intend to do? Volition your aims exist clear to your readers?

What are some other steps I should consider in later stages of the revision process?

Examine the rest within your paper: Are some parts out of proportion with others? Do you spend also much time on one trivial point and neglect a more of import bespeak? Do you give lots of particular early and then permit your points go thinner past the finish?
Check that you have kept your promises to your readers: Does your paper follow through on what the thesis promises? Do you lot back up all the claims in your thesis? Are the tone and formality of the linguistic communication appropriate for your audience?
Check the organization: Does your paper follow a pattern that makes sense? Practise the transitions move your readers smoothly from one point to the next? Do the topic sentences of each paragraph appropriately innovate what that paragraph is most? Would your paper work meliorate if you moved some things around? For more than information visit our handout on reorganizing drafts.
Cheque your data: Are all your facts accurate? Are any of your statements misleading? Have you provided enough detail to satisfy readers' curiosity? Have you cited all your information appropriately?
Check your conclusion: Does the final paragraph tie the paper together smoothly and end on a stimulating note, or does the paper just die a slow, redundant, lame, or abrupt death?

Whoa! I thought I could just revise in a few minutes

Deplorable. You may want to start working on your side by side paper early and so that you have plenty of time for revising. That way you can give yourself some time to come up dorsum to wait at what you lot've written with a fresh pair of eyes. It's amazing how something that sounded brilliant the moment you wrote information technology tin prove to exist less-than-bright when you give it a take chances to incubate.

Just I don't want to rewrite my whole paper!

Revision doesn't necessarily mean rewriting the whole paper. Sometimes it ways revising the thesis to match what y'all've discovered while writing. Sometimes information technology means coming up with stronger arguments to defend your position, or coming upward with more than vivid examples to illustrate your points. Sometimes it means shifting the social club of your paper to help the reader follow your argument, or to change the accent of your points. Sometimes it means adding or deleting material for balance or emphasis. And then, sadly, sometimes revision does mean trashing your outset draft and starting from scratch. Better that than having the teacher trash your final paper.

Just I work so difficult on what I write that I can't afford to throw any of it away

If you desire to exist a polished author, then y'all volition eventually observe out that you lot can't afford NOT to throw stuff away. As writers, we often produce lots of material that needs to be tossed. The idea or metaphor or paragraph that I call back is most wonderful and bright is oftentimes the very thing that confuses my reader or ruins the tone of my piece or interrupts the menses of my argument.Writers must be willing to sacrifice their favorite $.25 of writing for the skilful of the piece equally a whole. In social club to trim things down, though, you starting time take to have plenty of material on the page. One trick is not to hinder yourself while you are composing the showtime draft considering the more you lot produce, the more you will have to work with when cut time comes.

But sometimes I revise as I go

That's OK. Since writing is a round process, yous don't do everything in some specific guild. Sometimes you write something and then tinker with it earlier moving on. But be warned: there are ii potential problems with revising equally you become. One is that if you revise only as you proceed, you never become to think of the big motion picture. The fundamental is even so to give yourself enough time to look at the essay as a whole once you've finished. Another danger to revising as you lot go is that y'all may short-circuit your inventiveness. If you spend also much time tinkering with what is on the page, yous may lose some of what hasn't yet fabricated information technology to the page. Here's a tip: Don't proofread as you go. You may waste fourth dimension correcting the commas in a sentence that may end up being cut anyway.

How do I go about the process of revising? Whatever tips?

Work from a printed re-create; it's easier on the eyes. Also, problems that seem invisible on the screen somehow tend to show up better on paper.
Another tip is to read the paper out loud. That'southward one manner to meet how well things menses.
Remember all those questions listed above? Don't effort to tackle all of them in one draft. Pick a few "agendas" for each draft and so that y'all won't go mad trying to see, all at in one case, if you've done everything.
Ask lots of questions and don't flinch from answering them truthfully. For example, ask if there are opposing viewpoints that you haven't considered yet.

Concerns

Whenever I revise, I just make things worse. I do my best work without revising

That'due south a common misconception that sometimes arises from fear, sometimes from laziness. The truth is, though, that except for those rare moments of inspiration or genius when the perfect ideas expressed in the perfect words in the perfect order flow gracefully and effortlessly from the mind, all experienced writers revise their piece of work. I wrote half-dozen drafts of this handout. Hemingway rewrote the terminal page of A Farewell to Artillery xxx-nine times. If you're notwithstanding non convinced, re-read some of your one-time papers. How do they sound now? What would you revise if y'all had a chance?

What tin get in the way of skilful revision strategies?

Don't fall in dearest with what you take written. If y'all exercise, you will be hesitant to change it even if you know information technology'due south not great. Start out with a working thesis, and don't act like you lot're married to information technology. Instead, act similar you're dating it, seeing if you're uniform, finding out what information technology's like from 24-hour interval to twenty-four hour period. If a better thesis comes along, permit get of the old one. As well, don't think of revision equally just rewording. It is a chance to look at the entire paper, non just isolated words and sentences.

What happens if I observe that I no longer agree with my ain point?

If you take revision seriously, sometimes the process will lead you lot to questions you cannot answer, objections or exceptions to your thesis, cases that don't fit, loose ends or contradictions that merely won't go away. If this happens (and it will if y'all think long plenty), then you lot have several choices. Y'all could choose to ignore the loose ends and hope your reader doesn't notice them, but that's risky. You lot could change your thesis completely to fit your new agreement of the issue, or you lot could adapt your thesis slightly to suit the new ideas. Or you could just acknowledge the contradictions and testify why your main point still holds up in spite of them. Well-nigh readers know there are no like shooting fish in a barrel answers, so they may be bellyaching if y'all requite them a thesis and try to claim that information technology is e'er truthful with no exceptions no affair what.

How practice I get really skilful at revising?

The same way you get really good at golf, pianoforte, or a video game—do it often. Accept revision seriously, exist disciplined, and set up loftier standards for yourself. Here are three more tips:

The more you produce, the more than you tin cut.
The more you tin imagine yourself every bit a reader looking at this for the first time, the easier it will be to spot potential problems.
The more you demand of yourself in terms of clarity and elegance, the more than clear and elegant your writing volition be.

How do I revise at the sentence level?

Read your paper out loud, sentence by sentence, and follow Peter Elbow's advice: "Expect for places where you lot stumble or get lost in the centre of a sentence. These are obvious awkwardness's that need fixing. Look for places where you go distracted or fifty-fifty bored—where yous cannot concentrate. These are places where you lot probably lost focus or concentration in your writing. Cut through the extra words or vagueness or digression; get dorsum to the energy. Listen even for the tiniest jerk or stumble in your reading, the tiniest lessening of your energy or focus or concentration as you say the words . . . A sentence should be live" (Writing with Ability 135).

Practical advice for ensuring that your sentences are alive:

Use forceful verbs—replace long verb phrases with a more than specific verb. For case, supplant "She argues for the importance of the idea" with "She defends the idea."
Wait for places where you've used the same word or phrase twice or more in consecutive sentences and expect for culling ways to say the same matter OR for ways to combine the two sentences.
Cut equally many prepositional phrases equally yous tin can without losing your pregnant. For case, the following sentence, "There are several examples of the effect of integrity in Huck Finn," would be much ameliorate this way, "Huck Finn repeatedly addresses the effect of integrity."
Cheque your sentence variety. If more than two sentences in a row start the same way (with a bailiwick followed by a verb, for case), then endeavor using a different judgement pattern.
Aim for precision in word choice. Don't settle for the best word you lot can think of at the moment—use a thesaurus (along with a dictionary) to search for the word that says exactly what you want to say.
Look for sentences that kickoff with "It is" or "There are" and see if you tin can revise them to be more active and engaging.
For more data, please visit our handouts on word choice and mode.

How can technology help?

Demand some help revising? Take reward of the revision and versioning features available in modernistic discussion processors.

Track your changes. Most word processors and writing tools include a feature that allows you to keep your changes visible until you're fix to accept them. Using "Track Changes" style in Give-and-take or "Suggesting" style in Google Docs, for example, allows you to make changes without committing to them.

Compare drafts. Tools that permit you lot to compare multiple drafts requite you the take chances to visually track changes over fourth dimension. Try "File History" or "Compare Documents" modes in Google Doc, Give-and-take, and Scrivener to call back old drafts, identify changes you've fabricated over time, or help you keep a bigger picture in mind as you revise.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resource on the handout'southward topic, and we encourage you to exercise your ain research to find boosted publications. Please do not use this list equally a model for the format of your ain reference listing, as it may non match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, delight see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers, sixth ed. New York: Longman.

Elbow, Peter. 1998. Writing With Ability: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 2006. Revising Prose, 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin's Handbook, 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers, 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

Zinsser, William. 2001. On Writing Well: The Archetype Guide to Writing Nonfiction, 6th ed. New York: Quill.

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You may reproduce it for non-commercial employ if you use the unabridged handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Loma

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Source: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/revising-drafts/