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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