ACTIVITY 6.3.1
Now you are ready to begin revising your paper. Initially, you will revise for relevance and specificity of information and details.
Read the article below that provides information about revision strategies.
REVISION STRATEGIES
Global Revision
Always begin the revision process by turning your attention to the larger, or global, elements of writing: focus and organization. If you begin by making sentence level changes, or local revisions, you run the risk of overlooking or ignoring the more serious issues. In addition, you may find that the sentence you spent twenty minutes rewording into beautiful and fluid prose isn't really relevant to your thesis statement and you have to delete it after all. When you begin the revision process by looking closely and honestly at the overall focus and organization of the paper, then you save yourself a lot of needless proofreading.
Global revision does not mean simply moving paragraphs. Revising can be difficult and may call for substantial rewriting of the paper. You might discover, for example, that your central idea is much too broad for the length of your essay. When you narrow the central idea, you may then find that you need to cut out paragraphs that are no longer relevant to your point and that you need to expand on other sections instead.
Sharpening the Focus
A draft is clearly focused when it concentrates the reader's attention on one idea without straying from it. You can test whether or not your paper is well-focused by mapping the paper. In the margins, list the main points of each paragraph. When you are finished, make sure that each of these main points is relevant to your central idea. If the information seems to stray, you must decide whether your whether some information in the body of the paper needs to be deleted or reworked to be relevant to your central idea. You can sharpen the focus of a draft by deleting any information that seems to stray from your main point.
Adding Text
When you find a section that seems to need development, perhaps because there are not enough examples, you will need to return for a moment to the beginning of the writing process. List specifics, brainstorm ideas, and review your prewriting for relevant support for your central idea. Think about what you are assuming the reader knows. Have you omitted important information?
Deleting Text
Look for paragraphs and sentences that seem repetitive. Can they be deleted or combined with other sections? Have you strayed from your point or included information and details that are interesting but not necessary?
You can access an important revision resource by clicking on the link below.
Show, don't tell: THE FIRST RULE OF WRITING
After reviewing your information and details and making additions, deletions, and alterations as necessary, you are ready to move on to SENTENCE LEVEL REVISION in Lesson 4.