Revise
Drafting and revising are interdependent. As you draft, you will often review what you write and do some revision, but most of your energy is devoted, appropriately, to getting your words down on paper or into a computer file. Once you have a draft, you can revise in earnest. You will revise for substance – to clarify what you want to say – and for style -- to say it as effectively as possible.
a. Change your focus from writing about a topic to writing for a purpose.
As you reread your paper and decide how to revise it, base your decisions on the purpose of your paper. Is your primary purpose to inform, to interpret, or to argue?
Clarity about your purpose is especially important when an assignment calls for interpretation. A description is not the same as an interpretation. With this principle in mind, one student read over the first draft of her paper on the art of photography, a draft that included descriptions of several photographs. Here is her description of a photograph entitled "A Paratrooper Works to Save the Life of a Buddy":
FIRST DRAFT
In Paratrooper the surroundings are not entirely shown. For all we know, there could still be shelling or shooting in the area. One thing we see clearly is that the wounded soldier is lying on the muddy ground, yet his paratrooper buddy doesn't seem to mind. He leans over and tries to save his friend. Their clothes appear dirty and wet, which displays the ugliness of a war. One may even note how the paratrooper is almost crying; a part of his forehead is slightly wrinkled. His body as a whole is in a bent position.
Keeping her purpose in mind, the student asked herself which details in the paragraph were most significant--which ones could help her fulfill her interpretive purpose. She wanted to show her readers that even documentary photographs can be artistic. Her revision makes this interpretation clearer.
REVISION
Paratrooper subtly portrays the ugliness of war, not through a picture of shelling and shooting, but through a close-up of war's devastating effects on the individual and on human relationships. Dirty, damp, and ugly, the photograph reflects the misery of war. The paratrooper is the rescuer, but he is bent over his wounded buddy, as if he, too, is begging for help. Bodies shown in both Tomoko and Paratrooper are either squatting or lying down. Grief and terror literally knock people over.
b. Make sure you have a strong thesis.
Understanding your purpose will help you test your thesis for clarity. Remember that a thesis makes an assertion about a topic. It links the what and the why. Is the thesis evident on the first page of your draft? Before readers get very far along, they expect an answer to the question, "What's the point of all this?" Not finding the point on the first page is a signal to revise, unless you are deliberately waiting until the end to reveal your thesis.
Most writers start with a working thesis that often evolves into a more specific, complex assertion as they work with their ideas. One of the key challenges of revising is to compose a clear statement of this revised thesis. When she drafted her paper on Germany's economic prospects, Jennifer Koehler stated her working thesis as follows:
WORKING THESIS
Germany is experiencing a great deal of change.
During the revision process, Koehler realized that her working thesis was too weak to serve as the thesis of her final draft. A weak thesis is predictable: readers read it, agree, and that's that. A strong thesis, on the other hand, stimulates thoughtful inquiry. Koehler's revised thesis provokes questions:
REVISED THESIS
With proper follow through, Germany can become one of the world's primary sources of direct investment and maintain its status as one of the world's preeminent exporters.
When you need to identify or strengthen a thesis, it sometimes helps to compose a title for your paper. Koehler's title, "Germany's Path to Continuing Prosperity," which she decided on during the revising process, helped her to see that her thesis needed to explain the path from Germany's economic present to its future.
Your thesis should evolve throughout the paper. Readers need to see a statement of the main idea on the first page, but they also expect a more complex or general statement near the end. After presenting much evidence to support her revised thesis, Koehler concludes her paper by stating her thesis in a more general way:
If the government efforts continue, the economy will strengthen over the next decade and Germany will reinforce its position as an integral nation in the global economy.
c. Review the whole paper and its parts.
In a first draft, you are wise to think about the different parts of the paper and how you should order them in broad terms. Does the paper have a beginning, middle, and end, with bridges between those parts? When you revise, however, you can design a structure that supports what you want to say more effectively.
One way to review your structure is by outlining the first draft. An outline makes the overall pattern of your thinking clear. Try listing the key points of your draft in sentence form; whenever possible, use sentences that actually appear in the draft. This kind of point-by-point outlining will allow you to see the potential logic of your draft. Ask yourself if the key points are arranged effectively, or if another arrangement would work better. The following structures are typical ways of organizing papers.
The structure you choose should be appropriate to the assignment, your purpose, and your thesis, and the paper's parts should develop ideas in an orderly way. Examine each paragraph, asking yourself what role it plays -- or should play -- in the paper as a whole. Keeping this role in mind, check the paragraph for development, unity, and coherence -- and consider how it contributes to the paper as a whole.