ERR SENTENCELEVEL REVISION ENGL 1302 LEAH HEILIG WHY

ERR: SENTENCE-LEVEL REVISION ENGL 1302 LEAH HEILIG

WHY DO WE REVISE? • Writing is recursive • Writing is a process, not a product • We learn as we write • “A poem is never complete, merely abandoned. ” – Paul Valery

WHEN DO WE DO THIS? • Give yourself space between the writing & revising process • 50/24: Take breaks every 50 minutes, revise after 24 hours • Separate the steps (editing, rewriting, revision)

LITERATURE REVIEW • Are you keeping your focus on the research? • Are you integrating your sources well (citations, quotes, etc. )? • Are you clearly articulating what you mean? • Are you being specific & in-depth? • Do you have clear transitions and topic sentences? • Do you have clear topic areas?

STEP ONE: EDITING • Editing is evaluating work for surface-errors • Surface errors are mechanical, punctuation, syntactic, or grammatical mistakes • Editing is not easy! Many people spend years specializing in this task

EDITING: EXAMPLE

STRATEGIES FOR EDITING • Read your work out loud • Edit pages out of order/backwards (process fill) • Have someone else proof your work • Use the St. Martin’s Handbook and the Purdue OWL • Note common errors • 50/24

STEP TWO: REWRITING • Rewriting is sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph overhauling • The most time intensive • Works better with hard copy (research indicates that up to 20% of content is missed in revision with only a screen)

WHAT WE REWRITE FOR • Structure! • Following instructions (make a checklist) • Focus (specificity + staying on task) • Reasoning (enthymemes + syllogism) • Style + voice (cut the fluff/active voice) • Analysis + explanation • Sentence variation • Cohesion (sensense structure = makes sense sentence to sentence)

STRATEGIES FOR REWRITING • Reverse outline your paragraphs • Mindmapping (Prezi) • Sentence by sentence reads + rewrites • Have someone else read your work to you • Draw on your paper (arrows, lines, etc. )

THE BA 4 • Revise one body paragraph (6 -8 sentences in length) from your literature review • Include your original paragraph, your revised paragraph, and another paragraph which explains, describes, and justifies your revisions • Check for organization, language, word choice, and grammar and mechanics • Include your thesis statement

BA 4: RESOURCES • Chapter six in your First-Year Writing textbook, especially pages 125 -126 • Chapters 50 -53 in the St. Martin’s Handbook • View the “BA 4 Assignment Checklist” on the course blog

BA 4: OTHER RESOURCES • The Hemingway App* (my favorite!) • The Writer’s Diet • Google. Docs for synchronous peer review • Purdue OWL’s steps for revision • Save multiple copies of your work! • The St. Martin’s Handbook: – Pgs. 1 -13 = top 20 mistakes – Pgs. 353 -401 = effective language – Pgs. 533 -747 = mechanics – Pg. 819 = revision symbols

EXERCISE! GENERAL EDITS • Find a paragraph in your literature review that is 6 -8 sentences long • Read your paragraph out loud to your partner, edit as you go and switch when you’re finished • Take a piece of paper and cover everything but one line of text. Read and revise that line, then move the paper down to the next line

EXERCISE! SOURCES • Underline all quotes and citations in your paragraph – Are direct quotes more than 10% of your paragraph? Which ones are necessary? – “Are your in-text citations correct? ” (Heilig 132). – Are you using more than one source in this paragraph? Could you include other sources in this paragraph to make a stronger synthesis? – Draw a box around any content that is summarizing – does it need to be there or could it be synthesized instead?

EXERCISE! LANGUAGE • Circle the following words in your paragraph: – – – – – Studies Research People Others Some Many Article Source They It/Its Can we make these words more descriptive?

EXERCISE! LANGUAGE • Check for passive voice! Easy check: “by zombies” Example: John plays guitar. direct S V O ACTIVE VOICE = clearer, The guitar is played by John O V S PASSIVE VOICE = wordy John plays guitar by zombies = what? The guitar is played by zombies = makes sense! Passive voice.

EXERCISE! LANGUAGE (CNT) • Check for Engfish! • Simple words are sometimes best! • Don’t “scalar reason” with this