Our Favorite Revision Strategies

With deadlines fast approaching and drafts piling up, we thought it may be nice to share a few of our favorite revision strategies to help you out in the home stretch to the end of the semester.

Lead tutor Jenni suggests a strategy of to determine the clarity of your topic to your audience.

“Here is a revision strategy which has helped me clean up and refocus many papers. After completing a first draft, print out two copies of your paper. Take one copy, and in the margins identify the topic of each paragraph. Limit yourself to no more than three words. Ask yourself what each paragraph is really about, and jot it down. When you get to the end of your paper, go ahead and put those pages away and forget about them for the time being. Retrieve that second copy of your paper; the copy you have not jotted notes on. Hand it to a peer. Without mentioning how you’ve already done this yourself on another copy, ask your peer to read and then write in the margin next to each paragraph what they think is the topic of that paragraph. After your peer has finished, bring your copy with your notes back out. Compare papers and notes. Have a conversation about what you each came up with and why. Do you and your peer agree on what each paragraph is really about? If not, think and talk about how this miscommunication could have happened. What specifically on the page is sending mixed signals?”

Staff tutor Hillary describes a simple fix for voice and sentence clarity.

“One of the easiest and most effective ways to revise your paper is to read it aloud. Read the paper out loud, and pay attention to spots you stumble on. I find that these trouble areas usually just need a quick flip or maybe a different word choice to make them flow better. If possible, have a friend read along silently--You’d be surprised how often you will actually auto-correct your own typed words when you are speaking them.  Often you will say something clearer than you typed it, and BAM!, your brain did the revision for you. This is a tool we often use in the Writing Center, and it can really help smooth out the voice in your writing without much effort.”

Lead Tutor, Dan, has a bit of a different spin on reading your paper aloud, which he calls the “Richard Nixon.”

“Once I've written my paper, I like to read my paper aloud using a character voice, my favorite being Richard Nixon. Because I am focusing so much on the character voice, I  remove myself from my own speech patterns and can find any trouble spots in the paper”

We hope these few suggestions help in your revision process!

Please note the the Writing Center is OPEN Monday and Tuesday 9-5 and Wednesday 9-Noon during Finals week! Visit our webpage to make an appointment!

Outlining: A Necessary Evil

So you have your assignment sheet. You sit down in front of your laptop with a cup of coffee and a bag of cheetos (the lunch of champions) and begin to write. Suddenly you realize it’s three hours later, your caffeine buzz has passed, your cheetos are gone, and all you have on the page are a few scrawled, disjointed sentences. Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

The two most common problems I see walk into the writing center are lack of organization and simply not knowing where to start! Both of these problems can almost always be solved by outlining.

I know...ewww, right?

Most of us think of outlines as that stupid step we had to complete in third grade when we were all a bit too distracted to stay on topic. (Shiny?!) Outlining has been pushed aside as unnecessary and tedious, but I have come to realize in working with my students and peers that it is often THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP of the compositional process.

Think of it this way (which your elementary teacher may have once mentioned to you, as well):

Everything needs a base on which to build.

A house needs a foundation, otherwise it will be unstable.  

A bridge needs keystone or it will collapse.

A grilled cheese needs bread, otherwise you’ll burn your tongue licking melted cheese out of a hot pan.

AND an essay needs a frame on which to be built, which is an outline!

An outline provides organization and structure to your thoughts, and can often helped the “blocked” writer get their ideas out of their head and onto the paper. So how do you begin? Outlining is kind of a personal process, but there are a few options we can explore to help you get started.

In some cases, you may already have a thesis, or the idea you are trying to argue or prove. Start with that thought and begin compiling points to support it.  These ideas will most likely be general items which continue your investigation of the main topic. The most important thing at this point is to list different ideas you would like to explore about your main idea. For example:

Main Idea: Pasta is the best food.

Support point 1: Pasta is popular.

Support Point 2: Pasta is a staple in many cultures.

Support Point 3: Pasta is nutritional.

Do not worry if these points are “in order.” As you begin to find support, you can find a way to naturally progress through your ideas and organize them in the most logical order.

If you have no idea what your main idea/thesis will be, or if your paper is more exploratory than argumentative, just start writing down some ideas. If you have read some sources start there and write about parts that struck you, ideas you found interesting, or places you had questions about. Often just getting your ideas out on the page will help you see a common theme that will become the overarching topic of your paper. One of our tutors suggests writing important passages or points on note cards and separating them by theme into piles. If you have all your notes on one page, go through and highlight similar ideas in different colors. Don’t be afraid to try different methods of organization--there are many paths to an outline.

If you cannot wait to start writing, just start writing. Once you have these rough draft paragraphs out, take a moment and read through them.  Try to determine your main idea, and then arrange the paragraphs so that they logically flow from one idea to another, essentially creating an outline with your paragraphs. (Don’t worry about the flow too much at this point. You can always refine, add details and transitions later in the drafting process).

Once you have the framework of the paper you can begin finding support for each point you have made. Find sources or even specific quotes that back up the topic of that paragraph and the main idea of the paper as a whole. To expand upon our original outline:

Main Idea: Pasta is the best food.

Support point 1: Pasta is popular.

-Oxfam reported statistics listing pasta as the favorite food across several different countries.

(Sedghi, Amy. (22 July 2011). What’s your Favorite Food? The Guardian,

<http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jun/22/global-top-foods-list-by-country>.)

Support Point 2: Pasta is a staple in many cultures.

-Italian culture, Asian culture, even Western Culture (German Spaetzle)...

Support Point 3: Pasta is nutritional.

-Low Fat

-Carbs are part of a balanced diet according to FDA food pyramid

-Certain brands of pasta adding nutrients and fiber to recipe

**Notice that each bullet point listed supports the paragraph topic, and also helps to prove my main argument.

Now you can work to expand and refine your organized ideas into a fully formed essay!

Hopefully the task of writing your paper (or at least organizing your paper) seems a little less daunting now. Remember: Writing is a process, and organization is key to constructing a strong paper. No matter which method you choose to use, or if you find another way that works better for you, outlining, in all its forms, sets you up for success.

-Hillary E.

RU Writing Center Special Edition: MYTH-BUSTERS, Part 1

Welcome to the (first!) Myth-Busters edition of the RUWriting Blog where we will take on common ideas and misconceptions about the Writing Center and either CONFIRM  or BUST them!

Our first myth:

“The writing center is only for students who don’t know how to write. If I’m a good writer, I won’t get anything out of a session”

Finding: BUSTED
Explanation: The writing center is for everyone! The staff here works hard to cater to the needs of each specific student, so whether you feel like you can’t string a sentence together or like prose falls from your pen with the ease of a dolphin swimming, we can help you to become the best writer you can be. Whatever stage you are in (brainstorming, outline, first or final draft) we do our best to help you work towards consistency and a high level of quality in your writing. We can help with any concern you may have from outlines to quote sandwiches (It’s tastier than you think!) Coming in to the writing Center doesn’t mean you do not know how to write. Coming here means you are striving to be a better writer.

Myth #2:

“Using the writing center is cheating, because the tutors will write the paper for you.”

Finding: BUSTED

Explanation: The tutors here will not write the paper for you. (Sorry to those of you who just got really excited). We are trained to help you find your voice in your writing. While teachers may scribble over your paper in red ink, we do our best to focus on larger issues we believe will help the student in the long run. We prefer to sit and talk to you about your writing, the topic of your assignment and about the ideas you are trying to articulate in your paper. You’ll probably hear the phrase, “WRITE THAT DOWN!” more than one time in a session, and that is because we want you to compose clearly in YOUR OWN VOICE, not ours. We find that letting students take ownership of their writing, even as simple as writing down corrections or additions, allows them a better understanding for future pieces than merely “correcting” a paper for them. All of the writing is yours, we just try to bring it out of you.

Myth #3:

“We cannot guarantee you an A on your paper”

Finding: CONFIRMED

Explanation: We never guarantee a grade for a paper we have worked on, because, quite honestly, that’s not our goal. We want to help you become the writer YOU want to be. Your goal may be to become an “A” writer or it may just be to understand how to write an outline. Regardless, these things take time, and a lot of it depends on the student. As we stated before, we cater our sessions to the writer and try to focus on what we see as a few overarching topics we can work on for that piece. If the student continues to come in, for that piece or another, we can continue to refine the work as the student progresses. Writing, like most things, is a skill that relies on progress. If you want to put the work in, most likely, you will reach your goal, and we will very happily help you each step of the way.

-Hillary E.