So. Your SAGES Paper Stinks Like a Fetid Pile of Bog Slime . . . Now What?
Contributed by Christopher Williams on 20 October 2006 at 10:26Okay, maybe your paper isn't really that bad, but you still have to do some revision. So how to you revise and edit a paper? Well, I have a few suggestions here from the SAGES Peer Writing Crew. I'll be posting them in serial here over this next week, so check back early, and check back often. These are not, of course, the only strategies for revision, but there might be something useful here that you haven't seen before.
1. Read it out loud. Go find a quiet place where you won't scare your roommates, and read your paper to yourself. Go slowly and go carefully - it is easy to get caught up in the flow of your writing. This is an effective way to look at sentence structure and word use. If something sounds strange when you say it out loud, it probably is strange. If you can't get through a sentence without taking a breath, the sentence is probably too long. If you hear yourself repeating the same word time and time again within the same paragraph, you may want to combine some sentences or choose a different word. I could go on, but the point is that it is often easier to notice things about your writing when you hear them out loud. Perhaps this is because we are more used to the flow of spoken language than we are to written language. Perhaps not. Regardless, give this a shot - it's an excellent editing technique.
2. Make a reverse outline. When you make a normal outline, you write out the main ideas of your paper to help organize those points. A reverse outline, therefore, takes your paper and reduces it to its main points so you can see how it is organized. You can achieve this simplification in whatever way you like. I recommend reading your paper one chunk at a time and summarizing those chunks in the paper margin. This will help you see how the paper and its thoughts are organized. Depending on the level of organization with which you want to deal, you can choose different-sized chunks to consider. I recommend summarizing paragraphs first, to gain a gross outline of the paper. Then it is often helpful to break the paragraphs down into 2-3 sentence chunks (that's about how long it takes to develop most ideas), and summarize those. That will help organize and clarify the paragraph structure. You could even summarize sentence-by-sentence, but that might be a little excessive.
3. Concentrate on one thing at a time. When you read over your paper, don't try to do everything at once. Pick one or two things to fix each time you read. That way, you won't be distracted by a bad comma when the real problem with a sentence is that it is completely off-topic. It is, of course, important to focus on revisions in the proper order. Fix gross structural and content issues first, since they may require rewriting. Only after you’ve done the necessary rewrites should you focus on sentence-level editing.
When doing sentence-level work, it is easy to get caught up in the flow of a paper (see #1). To avoid this distraction, try reading the paper backwards. No, not backwards word-for-word ("word-for-word backwards not, No" – see, that doesn’t help). Go sentence by sentence. This will remove much of the distracting flow from a paper and let you concentrate on the grammatical issue at hand.
4. Let it sit for a day. Despite the inherent and insurmountable challenge in getting a paper done even an hour before the deadline, letting your paper rest for a while is one of the best things you can do in revision. You can clear your head out that way. You get a much better chance to approach your paper as if you are the audience, not the writer, if you can step away from it for a bit. (The problem with approaching as the author is that the author knows everything, while the audience knows only what is actually on the paper. To make sure that you are communicating clearly, you have to get into that limited-knowledge audience mindset.) Also, like techniques mentioned earlier, this one separates you from the captivating flow of the paper. You'll see things you didn't before, I promise.
5. Share it with a friend. Sometimes, you just can't get into that audience mindset no matter how hard you try or what you do. So . . . go find an audience. Polish your grammar some first, so that your friend won't be distracted by errors, then get someone you trust to give you an honest opinion on the clarity of your work. If you find yourself arguing about a point or being forced to explain something, your paper probably needs some clarification to make the audience see your point of view. Include those arguments and explanations in the paper, and you'll be well on your way to a clear and convincing piece of work.
For this purpose, you can consider the SAGES Peer Writing Crew to be your "professional friends." Bring us your papers, and we'll help you make them better. Even if they're already good. You are welcome to walk into our offices in Wade and Fribley to see if we're available (which we are most weeknights.) Better yet, you can make an appointment through Tutortrac, and you'll be guaranteed to have our full attention. Just follow the link at the top of this page.
Have an excellent fall break, everyone. Until next time, good luck writing.
Dave said
On 20 October 2006 at 10:37I fully intend to put "professional friend" on my resume.