Revising includes looking over what you have written, proofreading, and editing.
Here are some tips for revising your thesis and body of your paper:
Read for Meaning
At this point, don’t worry about little mistakes, but concentrate on your message and the content of your paper. Make note of places where your paper is unclear.
Read for Purpose
Does your paper achieve what you initially set out to prove or tell?
Revision Checklist: Whole Essay and Paragraphs
- Is your essay topic suitable and narrow enough?
- Does your thesis statement communicate topic, focus, and purpose?
- Does your essay reflect awareness of your readers?
- Is your essay arranged effectively?
- Have you cut material that goes off the topic?
- Does your introduction relate to the rest of the essay?
- Do your body paragraphs express main ideas in topic sentences as needed? Are your main ideas clearly related to your thesis statement?
- Are your body paragraphs developed with specific, concrete support for each main idea?
- Do your paragraphs maintain coherence, using transitions and other techniques as necessary?
- Does your conclusion provide a sense of completion?
Revision Checklist: Sentences and Words
- Are your sentences concise?
- Do your sentences show clear relationships among ideas?
- Do you use effective parallelism (links), and does your writing style reflect variety and emphasis?
- Have you eliminated sentence fragments? Have you eliminated comma splices and fused sentences?
- Have you eliminated confusing shifts? Have you eliminated mixed and incomplete sentences?
- Have you eliminated misplaced and dangling modifiers?
- Have you used exact words?
- Is your language appropriate and your usage correct?
Editing
Editing means fixing errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitals, numbers, italics, and abbreviations.
Editing Checklist
- Is the grammar correct?
- Are the sentences correct?
- Are commas used correctly?
- Are all other punctuation marks used correctly?
- Are capital letters, italics, abbreviations, and numbers used correctly?
- Is the spelling correct?
