Revising and Editing Your Research Paper

Self-Revision

In the revision step, focus on the following questions and strategies: Assignment requirements: Did you

fulfill all the expectations for the assignment? Reread the directions to be sure.

Self-Revision

Audience and purpose: Does your content take your audience and

their skill levels into consideration? Have you fulfilled your initial purpose to inform, persuade, or convince your reader about a certain viewpoint?

Self-Revision

Content and organization: Does the overall organization of the

paper make sense logically? Review your outline again, if necessary. As you read your paper, revise content where necessary. Rearrange words and sentences for a stronger affect, and rewrite passages that may not be clear.

Self-Revision-Content and Organization

Introduction: Does your introduction catch the reader’s

attention? You can catch your reader’s attention in a number of ways: by telling a story, providing a shocking statistic or quotation, or explaining an interesting fact. Have you included your thesis statement at the end of the introduction? Have you avoided jumping right into the arguments (the supporting evidence for the body of the paper)?

Self-Revision-Content and Organization

Supporting details: Is each topic sentence thoroughly explained

through the use of examples, reasons, facts, data, case studies, stories, and so forth? Have you taken counterarguments into account? Is your writing free of bias and fallacies?

Self-Revision-Content and Organization

Visuals: Have you included visuals that enhance your

arguments and explanations? Is the information in the visuals adequately explained and clearly conveyed?

Self-Revision-Content and Organization

Conclusion: Does your conclusion neatly wrap up the paper

while making an impact on the reader? Have you avoided simply repeating your introduction? You can say something interesting or memorable in your conclusion, but again, avoid using the conclusion to add new information or to support your thesis.

Self-Revision-Content and Organization

Transitions: Have you used transitions to move readers

smoothly from paragraph to paragraph; from sentence to sentence; and from your own writing into quotations, paraphrases, or summaries?

Self-Revision

Unity and coherence: Does every paragraph have a topic

sentence? Do all the supporting paragraphs relate to this one main idea? Is the writing clear, concise, and understandable?

Self-Revision

Tone and vocabulary: Are your voice and tone consistent throughout

the paper? Your paper needs to be written from a third-person point of view (no I or you pronouns) and without slang or contractions. To create a more lively tone, try writing a variety of sentence types. Replace words that are too advanced for your audience, not descriptive enough, or vague.

Self-Revision

Documentation: Does every paraphrase, summary, and

quotation have an in-text citation? Are all references cited in the paper also listed on a references page at the end of the paper? It may help to print your paper and highlight all the passages that include sources to ensure each citation has a corresponding reference.

Self-Revision

Paper formatting: Have you ensured that the paper’s font,

margins, and style conform to Lake-Sumter Community College’s guidelines?

Self-Revision

Title: Is the title of the paper catchy enough to

make the audience want to read your paper? Not catchy: Boys and Girls in School Catchy: Closing the Gender Gap in Our

Schools

Editing

Editing is the final step in the revision process. Editing involves looking for technical errors in your paper such as spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation:

Editing

Sentence structure: Have you avoided fragments

(sentences that are too short because they do not constitute a complete thought) and run-ons (sentences that are too long because they continue without a proper punctuation mark or break)?

Editing

Punctuation and capitalization: Are capital letters, periods, commas,

apostrophes, and other punctuation marks used correctly?

Editing

Spelling and word usage: Always use the spell-check tool on your

computer. The spell-checker does not pick up every misspelled or misused word, so be sure to review your paper thoroughly for spelling errors.

Editing

Inoffensive language: Be sure your writing refers to sex, race,

gender, and religion equally and fairly.