Rules for Writers Chapter 3 Summary

Week 6
Writing Topic: Rules for Writers chapter 3


Revising your essay involves looking at grammar and sentence structure as well as the focus, purpose and over all content of the paper. After reading your rough draft you may decide to restructure or completely delete paragraphs that hinder the focus of your thesis. Sometimes you will decide to change the thesis to fit the information you want to present. This is what revising is all about. During this process questions you may want to ask yourself include; is the focus of the paper clear, are the ideas presented in a logical clear manner, is the material relevant and persuasive and does the draft offer just one point of view?
When revising you need to edit your work carefully. Grammar checkers help but, you have to make decisions on grammatical structure. Proof reading is the final step, I proofread out loud like I am presenting to an audience. Just hearing a sentence or whole paragraph out loud can often help me realize what needs to be changed. I have also tried reading the paragraphs from the conclusion backward to see if they still make sense. I liked the example essay they used. It held helpful tips on how to revise an informational essay.
Looking at the structure of revising will help me when I write. Too often I worry about grammar and sentence structure when I am doing a rough draft. The lesson for me to learn is that a rough draft is meant to be just that. I need to remember to just use this time to get my thoughts down on paper and then revise.