Document Title

Drafting and Revising

Know How to get Started:

If you have trouble getting started when the time arrives for drafting, you are not alone. Even professional writers sometimes have trouble getting started. Here are some time-proven methods used by experienced writers to get started when they are blocked.
1. Avoid staring at a blank page. Fill up the paper. Write words, scribble, or draw while you think about your topic. The movement of filling the paper while thinking can stimulate your mind to turn to actual drafting.
2. Use "focused freewriting". List three topics you think you might write about and write anything that comes into your mind about each one.
3. Picture yourself writing. Imagine yourself in the place where you usually write, with the materials you need, busy at work.
4. Write your material in a letter to a friend. This gives you a chance to relax. The letter can then serve as a rough draft.
5. Write your material as if you were someone else: you can be a friend writing to you, an instructor writing to a class, a person in history writing to you or to someone else. Once you take on the role, you may feel less inhibited about writing.
6. Switch your method of writing. If you usually typewrite or use a word processor, try writing by hand. If you usually use a pen, switch to a pencil or a word processor.
7. Start in the middle. If you do not know what to write in your introduction, start with a body paragraph.

Know How to Write a Draft:
First drafts are not meant to be perfect: they are meant to give you something to revise. The direction of drafting is forward: keep pressing ahead. Do not stop to check spelling or grammar. If you are not sure a word or sentence is correct, circle it or put an X in the margin so that you can return to that spot later.

Know How to Revise:
To revise your essay, you must evaluate it. Then you make improvements and in turn evaluate them in the context of the surrounding material. This process continues until you are satisfied that the essay is in final draft.

Know the Steps and Activities of Revision:
1. Shift mentally from suspending judgment (during idea gathering and drafting) to making judgments.
2. Read your draft critically to evaluate it. Pretend you are not the writer, but the audience.
3. Decide whether to write an entirely new draft or to revise the one you have.
4. Be systematic. You need to pay attention to many different elements of a draft, from overall organization to choice of words. Most writers work better when they concentrate on specific elements during separate rounds of revision. Read the paper first for content ideas and thematic consistency. Read it a second time for paragraph format. Read it a third time for mechanics--grammar, punctuation.
ADD. Insert needed words, sentences, and paragraphs. If your additions require new content, return to the idea-gathering techniques.
CUT. Get rid of whatever goes off the topic or repeats what has already been said.
REPLACE. As needed, substitute new words, sentences, and paragraphs for what you have cut.
MOVE MATERIAL AROUND. Change the sequence of paragraphs if the material is not presented in logical order. Move sentences within paragraphs, or to other paragraphs, if arrangements seem illogical.

Use the Organizing Power of your Thesis Statement and Essay Title.

The thesis statement expresses the central theme that controls and limits what the essay will cover. A thesis statement contains the topic, narrowed appropriately; the focus, which presents what you are saying about the topic; and the purpose. If your thesis statement does not match what you say in your essay, you need to revise either the thesis statement or the essay--sometimes both. The title of an essay also plays an important organizing role. A good title can set you on your course and tell your readers what to expect.

The thesis statement should be reflected in every paragraph. Every paragraph should have a topic sentence that states the point of that paragraph, a body that develops that point with details, examples, reasons, facts, etc. and a concluding sentence that restates the idea of the topic sentence.

Check List for Revision:
1. Does the introduction help your audience make the transition to the body of your essay?
2. Does each body paragraph express its main idea in a topic sentence and conclude with a sentence that reflects that idea?
3. Are the main ideas--topic sentences--clearly related to the thesis statement of the essay?
4. Are the body paragraphs developed? Is the development sufficient?
5. Does each body paragraph contain specific and concrete support for its main idea? Do the details provide examples, reasons, facts?
6. Are the facts, figures, and dates accurate?
7. Is each body paragraph arranged logically?
8. Does the conclusion give your reader a sense of completion?
9. Have you cut all material that goes off the topic?
10. Have you used necessary transitions?
11. Do the paragraphs maintain coherence with pronouns, selective repetition, and parallel structures?
12. Do you show relationships between paragraphs?
13. Does your writing style reveal a sensitivity to the need for variety and emphasis?
14. Does the structure of your sentences help convey the emphasis you intend?

Know How to Edit:
When you edit, you check the technical correctness of your writing. You pay attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and to correct use of capitals, numbers, italics, and abbreviations. You are ready to edit once you have a final draft that contains suitable content, organization, development, and sentence structure. Once you have edited your work, you are ready to transcribe it into a final copy.

EDITING CHECKLIST
1. Is the grammar correct? Have you used correct verb forms? Have you used the correct case of nouns and pronouns? Do pronouns refer to clear antecedents? Do subjects and verbs agree? Do pronouns agree with their antecedents? Have you distinguished between adjectives and adverbs?
2. Is the spelling correct? Did you use the spell check on the computer?
3. Have you used punctuation correctly?
4. Have you correctly used capital letters, italics, numbers, and abbreviations?

Know How to Proofread:
When you proofread, you check a final version carefully before handing it in. You need to make sure your work is an accurate and clean transcription of your final draft. Proofreading involves a careful, line-by-line reading of an essay. You should proofread with a ruler so that you can focus on one line at a time. Remember that no matter how hard you have worked on other parts of the writing process, if your final copy is inaccurate or messy, you will not be taken seriously.