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Checklist for Global Revision1 Purpose and Audience

• Does the plan accomplish its purpose – to analyze a reading, develop a claim, and support that claim with evidence from the selected reading?

• Is the plan appropriate for its audience? Does it account for the audience’s knowledge of the subject, level of interest in the subject, and possible attitudes toward the subject?

Focus

• Is your claim clear? Do you show how you derived the claim from your selected reading?

• Do you identify the key points you'll use to support your claim? Have you explained the rationale for choosing each point?

Organization and Paragraphing

• Are there enough organizational cues for readers, like topic sentences? • Are ideas presented in a logical order? • Are any paragraphs too long or too short for easy reading?

Content

• Is the evidence I've chosen relevant and persuasive? • Which ideas need further development? • Are the parts proportioned sensibly? Do major ideas receive enough attention? • Where might material be deleted?

Point of View

• Is the draft free of distracting shifts in point of view (from I to you, for example, or from it to they)?

• Is the dominant point of view – I, we, you, he, she, it, one, or they – appropriate for your purpose and audience?

***

“When you revise sentences, you focus on effectiveness; when you edit, you check for correctness. Proofreading is a slow and careful reading in search of typos and other obvious mistakes” (Hacker 29).

1 Hacker, Diana. Rules for Writers 6th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

Paragraph Level Revision

“A paragraph should be unified around a main point. The main point should be clear to readers, and all sentences in the paragraph should relate to it” (Hacker 40).

• State the main point in a topic sentence – the topic sentence should act as a signpost pointing in two directions: backward toward the thesis of the essay and forward toward the body of the paragraph.

• Stick to the point – if a sentence does not support the topic sentence it destroys the unity of the paragraph

• Develop the main point – a series of brief paragraphs suggests inadequate development

• Make paragraphs coherent – sentences and paragraphs should flow from one to another without discernible bumps, gaps, or shifts. Coherence can be improved by strengthening the ties between old information and new.

o Link ideas clearly o Repeat key words o Use parallel structures o Maintain consistency o Provide transitions

• If necessary, adjust paragraph length – aim for paragraphs between 100-200 words

Sentence Level Revision

In order to revise sentences without “reading over” the passages you’ve become familiar with, try starting with the last sentence in your essay and read each sentence from end to beginning, checking each sentence for clarity, effectiveness, and correctness. Clarity

• Is the point of this sentence clear? • Will a reader be able to understand what I’m trying to say?

Effectiveness

• Does this sentence further the point of my topic sentence? • Does it further the point of my thesis? • Does it help persuade or inform my audience?

Correctness

• Does the sentence contain any mechanical or grammatical errors? • Is everything spelled correctly?

*** Take your essay to the writing center for additional help. A new pair of eyes will not only be able to find things you passed over, they will also be able to tell you whether the point you set out to make in your thesis was proved by the end of the essay.