Chapter 11: Revising Your Work
Chapter Summary
Key Takeaways
- Many students see revision as just checking spelling and grammar, but revision is about re-thinking the piece. The first draft if for you, so that you can get your thoughts down, and the second is for your audience. When you revise, think about your audience.
- When you revise, start with higher-order concerns. Don’t be afraid to reorganize or even cut pieces and start over.
- After you’ve revised the big picture pieces, focus on editing (looking for punctuation, spelling and grammar mistakes), and then proofreading (taking one last look at your almost-finished document to make sure all the changes were made).
Activities for Further Reflection
- Organize a peer review session where students exchange drafts of their work and provide constructive feedback to each other.
- Develop a revision checklist that you can follow when submitting your final assignments this semester.
- Create a reverse outline of one of the papers that you are currently working on or have recently finished.
- Write a reflection on your revision process including areas that you found uncomfortable and ways that you may improve your papers in the future using this process.
References
Meyer, C. (2017). Communicating for results: A Canadian student’s guide (4th ed.). Don Mills, Canada: Oxford University Press.
Attribution
This chapter contains material taken from Introduction to Professional Communications is (c) 2018 by Melissa Ashman and is licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
