Humanities

Revising Your Writing

Revising is not editing; editing means correcting mechanical (spelling, grammar) mistakes. Revising means making substantial additions, subtractions, and improvements to your draft. It is the process through which you take good writing and make it better. Good writers know that revision is a key part in the process of expressing their thoughts clearly and effectively!

Revision Steps

  1. Read over your paper and your teacher’s comments carefully.
  2. Take a pencil and mark what you would like to change in your paper.
  3. Be sure to look for grammar, mechanical, and spelling mistakes
  4. Also look at the organization of your paper—would a certain sentence sound better somewhere else in the paper?
  5. Remember to go over the ideas you stated in your paper. Is there a place where you need to explain your ideas more clearly and with more detail?
  6. Make the necessary revisions to your paper.
  7. Reread your paper out loud, or have someone else read your paper—Do the new changes make sense? Did you keep your teacher’s comments in mind?
  8. In your new draft, underline all of the changes (additions, subtractions, edits) that you’ve made.
  9. Staple your old draft (with your teacher’s comments) and your new draft together and hand them into your teacher.

Symbols

¶ = begin new paragraph

M (one underline) = the letter should be lowercase

m (double underline) = the letter should be uppercase

frag. or INC = fragment sentence or not a complete sentence

run-on or RO = run on sentence (there needs to be more than one sentence made)

= misspelled word

italics or ital.= the word or words should be in italics

indent = indent the line (press the “tab” key once)

awkward or awk. = the sentence is unclear or needs to be worded better

WC = word choice; the word doesn’t fit

“No double double space” = There are too many spaces between your

lines. Press “return” or “enter” only once, not twice when double-spacing.

? = idea or sentence is unclear

CS = comma splice (when two complete sentences are separated by a comma instead of a period, semi-colon, or conjunctions)

TS = topic sentence

SS = single space (marked text should be single spaced instead of double spaced)

Numbers below 20 should be written out (one, two . . . nineteen, 20)