Revising Your Draft

Revising the draft of a composition is not a short, simple process. It does NOT mean simply reading through and finding any spelling mistakes. In fact, it really needs to be done in at least TWO stages.

1. Revise your draft from the point of view of content, structure, and style.

2. Revise your draft looking for language problems, including grammar, spelling and punctuation.

1. Content

l Each composition should have only ONE thesis statement (point of view) and EVERYTHING you include in your body should be directly intended to PROVE that ONE statement is true. Anything else, no matter how interesting, should be removed.

l If you make a claim or give a reason that may be disputed, make sure you support it with either an expert source, or statisitcs or good, real examples. Don’t just expect that the reader will agree with you!

2. Structure

Paragraph structure:

1. introduction: Finish with your THESIS STATEMENT clearly written.

2. Body Paragraphs

Topic sentence; support; concluding sentence.

Your topic sentence should be a general statement of the argument for that WHOLE paragraph, and should be DIRECTLY related to your THESIS STATEMENT

Support should be clearly identified by a marker (For example etc.)

3. Conclusion should restate your main points (your topic sentences from each paragraph) in short form, and then conclude with a final statement of strength or recommendation etc.

4. Style

Academic essays are some of the most formal writing (perhaps with the exception of legal writing). You should NOT be using colloquial phrases (rubbish; nonsense; stupid etc.), or cliches. You should try to choose more formal expressions, rather than colloquial ones.

Some suggestions for improving your style:

1. try to use single word verbs, rather than phrasal verbs; cut out any unnessary short words.

2. try to remove any sexist or biased language

3. remove unnessary jargon if using sources – rewrite in YOUR OWN WORDS unless direct quoting.

4. Be assertive

5. References

List sources alphabetically.

You can use footnotes instead of references in the text, but follow the same format.

Direct quotes MUST have quotation marks. Do NOT direct quote more than a few lines.