REVISE! REVISE! REVISE!

Reworking your ideas in the best way possible.

Nine Priorities

Thesis Statement Audience Following directions Support structure Syntax Diction Usage Spelling Presentation

This is the where your voice can really shine – your humor, your style, your reverence – this also helps to establish your tone and how your audience receives your argument (s). This is also where an otherwise solid argument can fall flat – poor wording, over wordiness, poor punctuation that interferes with either the message or the perception the reader has of you, the speaker.

Problems with thesis statement: Thesis is bad

Vague, mere fact, mere summary, ???? failed to prove thesis

Not enough support/your evidence does not support your thesis statementmere summaryoff topicCommentary does not link evidence to argument

Audience

need to use formal /academic language Your reader is educated, but not a mind-

reader Don’t “talk” down to your reader Don’t make your reader assume Don’t assume your reader has the same

context as you - explain

Argument

Clearly stated and argued Counterarguments

Addressed Not left refuted

Qualify your statements Add boundaries (strengthens individual claims)

Structure I

Paragraph structure: Topic sentence (general claim of

paragraph) Adding more clarity

Specific detail (good place to cite an author) Commentary – developing the detail – how does it

relate to your claim (do NOT restate the author) Adding more clarity

Specific detail (good place to cite an author) Commentary – developing the detail – how does it

relate to your claim (do NOT restate the author)

Structure II

How does your overall paper develop? Does it build to an ultimate conclusion? Is each paragraph important?

Think of the shape of your argument:

Weakest point

Fairly solid

Strongest point

StrongMid

weak

Strong, weak, strong

WeakStrongWeak

Style

Think about all the authors we’ve read Whose style did you enjoy? Think about what made his or her style pop out to

you. You do not need to be Thoreau or Rodriguez or Prose or

Orwell, but do not neglect to learn from them Mix up your sentence structures – add variety to

keep your reader’s interest EX: A few longer sentences followed by a short,

simple sentence allows your reader to focus on the latter

Verbiage- scholarly, but not pedantic, formal but not overly so (be careful not to be too heavily influenced by the archaic authors.)

Get out your rough draft

Take 10 minutes to annotate your own text Key words/phrases Important insights

Then…

Write a précis of your own paper (sometimes called an abstract)

Side Note: This is a relatively small paper for an abstract, but professors will often have students write one as an intro or pre-writing for a longer essay