Revising+&+Editing+Strategies

//Whenever working on revising and editing, the goal is to change your writing to make it better. You need to accept the fact that the first draft you write will become a very different and much better version by the time you are ready to publish and turn it in. Be critical of your own work, let go of certain words or phrases when you find better ones to use. Always look for better, more specific and more interesting words to use but always maintain your own voice and personal writing style. Express your personality, never be afraid to take risks with your writing and to support your writing with elaboration, examples and relevant details.//

Here are some resources and strategies to help with revising and editing, which is the most critical step of the writing process and one in which we will be dedicated a lot of class time to when working on any formal writing assignments in class.

Many of them involve working with peers; peer editors are essential for helping you change your writing to make it better.

Some of these techniques will be used once in a while, depending on the type of writing assignment with which you are working; others will be conducted every time we revise and edit written work in class.

You may download and save any of the pdf files listed below to your own desktop. Happy revising and editing!


 * __Revising & Editing Strategies:__**

1. Read your draft out loud quietly to yourself; when you stumble over your words, hear or see an error, stop and fix it. 2. Trade papers with a partner; read your partner's draft out loud to him/her. Stop when you notice anything that needs to be improved, discuss changes that could be made and revise as you read. Have your partner repeat this process with your draft. 3. Read your paper from the end to the beginning; this will allow you to treat each sentence in isolation. Reading a sentence out of context makes it easier to find mistakes, especially grammatical mistakes involving spelling, grammar and/or punctuation.


 * __Online help and pdf files:__**

Teen Ink: online literary and writing magazines http://www.teenink.com/Resources/WritingR.php

From Google Docs: Collaborative Revision Guide Collaborative Revision Checklist