Deadly Student Sin#2-Not Revising

Photo by Diganta Talukar

You can always tell when someone hasn't taken the time to revise their writing. It's often difficult to read, and full of sloppy mistakes that could have been caught with some proofreading and fixed with good revision. Here's a few tips to help your papers make the grade.

1) Where's the thesis? The thesis of your paper is the underlying purpose of writing it. What are you going to prove in your paper? What question are you going to answer for your audience? Too many times, inexperienced writers forget that their writing is supposed to have a purpose, and just puke out plot summary. Your professor already knows the plot of Moby Dick, and has nil interest in reading your re-hash of it. He/she wants to know that you have formulated your own take on the symbolism of, say for example,  how the sea represents a place of transition in Moby Dick. Formulating your thesis will be the toughest part of writing your paper. The rest of the paper will be supporting details of your thesis, and providing a neat summary of your findings in the conclusion. If you don't take the time to nail down a clear, concise thesis statement, the rest of your paper will read like a bowl of pablum: thin, mushy and not very tasty.

2) Proofread, proofread, proofread--No, not just once for spelling mistakes. Does your paper have a logical flow to it, with each point building on your thesis? If you don't have anyone else to read your paper for you, read it out loud to yourself to see if it flows naturally or sounds like a jerky, garbled mess. Read it backwards, from end to beginning. You can often catch mistakes this way.

3)Chop it up, throw it out--You will never be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature for a freshman essay, so don't feel that your writing is too precious to dispose of. Are many of your points redundant rehashes of each other? Get rid of them. Don't just pad for the sake of reaching a word minimum specified by your professor. Oh, and you can move your paragraphs/sentences around in the paper  too. Sometimes this is the kick in the butt your paper needs to stand up straight and get noticed. Does your conclusion work better as your introduction? Then make it so, as Jean Luc Picard tells Number One.

4) Obvious Grammar Gaffes and Usage Problems--Their is many ways to make your professor hate your guts when they read your essay late at night. That sentence contains two of them. Learn the difference between their, there, and they're. Make your subject agree with your verb. It's not "Their is many ways," it's "There are many ways." If your subject is singular, you use is. If it's plural, you use are. Brush up on your grammar, and you'll boost your grades immediately. Oh, and as a special favor to me, learn the difference between effect and affect, would you? While you're at it, don't use than when you mean then. Okay, I'm going to conclude this section before I start totally ranting.

5) Use Spell and Grammar Checker, But Don't Rely On Them. Your spellchecker might not catch a word that is spelled correctly, but is used in the wrong context (see their and there above.) Frankly, I think the grammar check program in Word was obviously written by a math major with no love for the English language, because it's often dead wrong with its advice.

Keep your eye on the prize; revise, revise, revise! But keep in mind our first deadly student sin: procrastination. Start your paper as soon as possible so you have time to do the revisions you need to make your paper stand out from the weak pablum produced by your classmates.

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