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!

Telling Stories, Part 1

The Common Assignment

What is the secret to writing well? The answer is simple. Tell stories.

From academia to poetry, from Economics 440 to English 101, from Thomas Friedman to Mark Twain, the key to writing well -- the key to making an audience care about the words written -- is telling stories. Don't tell me something was this or is that! Tell me about someone who lived like this or about a people who fought for that!

Every couple of weeks, a great story-teller comes to the Writing Center for help. They don't realize they're great story-tellers, but they can't help it -- they simply are. Most people -- believe it or not -- are at least good story-tellers. They can decently describe their favorite movie; they can tell me why they left their previous job. When I ask them how their day has been, they might roll their eyes and snarl out a few details -- what an effective display! They're telling a story with more than just words! They make me feel their pain or their excitement quickly and efficiently!

Yet, when it comes to writing a paper for class, their ability to describe and narrate disappears like a baseball into the thick ivy of Wrigley Field. It happens to all of us, at times, when sitting in front of some boring assignment. Suddenly, our voices change into a cold, robotic droning. And our eyes! They glow a dull blue as the automaton inside us begins take over. Our skin morphing into metal, we inform the world in the most boring way about the topic at hand:

"These days, culture is very important," the us-robot beeps. "Culture is the tool with which people record their heritage and maintain their identity. Author X viewed her culture as an essential element in her personal development."

I don't know how others feel, but I -- honestly -- fell asleep twice while writing that excerpt! Imagine how professors feel as they read dozens of these papers in a row! Let's do them a favor -- and do our grades a favor! -- and tell stories!

"Culture is sweet tea resting in a sweating glass at the edge of the pool," a living me writes. "Culture is my whole family, dressed in blue, huddled around our glowing TV, watching football. Culture, to author X, was different food and different rituals than it is to me -- but to her and to me, it was and is home, and necessary."

In this non-robot version, notice how real that glass of tea seems -- how it maybe leads some to conclude I'm from the south -- and how it shows a real person behind the writing. In other words, I'm giving the reader more information and in a way so that the reader will remember it also!

Too often students don't think their lives can relate to the sometimes fantastic, sometimes terrible, lives of the authors they read. This perspective is, as scientists say, "hogwash." We must realize that our lives are interesting. The details we notice, the things the happen to us, and the things we do -- they are all unique to us! They all provide perspective and a frame within which we can understand these amazing or awe-inspiring authors. If I grew up in a small Florida town and never did anything spectacular, then I'm unique in that I never did anything spectacular! -- and unique in that I don't understand why people from New Jersey drink "wooder" instead of "water," and that I didn't know what a genuine fall season was like, and that people could get excited about soccer, so on.

The key, therefore, is realizing the relationship between oneself and the subject matter. If I must write about Plato, I will imagine my life applied to his creeds. If I must write about Asian cultures, I will compare my own routines and habits to theirs. If I must talk about language barriers, I will write about my most recent trip to McDonald's -- simple and basic stories unique to me make the work more appealing!

Up next: "Telling Stories in Scientific and Academic Writing"

-Bradley Woodrum