Writing Focus – Revising

Revising a Formal Paper

Revising is known as rethinking and rewriting sections of a paper. This step in the writing process is best done several days after your rough draft has been written. The time away from a piece of writing gives you a chance to think more objectively about the purpose, audience, and format of the paper. When you are ready to revise your paper, consider making changes to your paper that will strengthen your argument, clarify parts that may have been vague or confusing to your reader, and improve the flow of your ideas.

Try revising your paper from your reader's point of view. In fact, to revise means literally "to re-see." When you revise, you are looking to ensure each part of your paper works with the other parts to make a coherent whole. You may need to change the order of your information, expand on certain sections, or cut details in others. Often, you will need to go back to the drafting stage and re-work parts of your paper. You may even decide to do additional research if you come back to your paper and decide that an argument is not quite strong enough or logical. Any changes you make that improve your paper are never a waste of time.

When you sit down to revise your paper, reread your draft multiple times, each time focusing on a different area. Check that you have adequately incorporated unity, organization and clarity, relevance, sentence variety, and word choice. In this interactivity, click the checkboxes on the clipboard to examine a list of tips to help you revise your paper. Click the player button to begin.

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Peer Review Using Technology

Technology can make the revising and editing steps of the writing process a much easier and efficient task. Most word processing software provides tools that allow you to highlight text, insert comments, and even track changes. Although the specific features available will vary among programs or change as software is upgraded, you can explore some common tools used for revising and editing. In this interactivity, click the tabs to learn more about using word processing tools for providing feedback for a peer review. Click the player button to begin.

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Revising Review

Now that you have explored the revising step of the writing process, it is time to review your knowledge and practice what you have learned. In this non-graded activity, read the statements and decide whether they are true or false. Click the player button to get started.