VII. Revise your draft.
Again—don’t be afraid to ask for another opinion.
Email your intro and a body paragraph to your instructor to see if you’re headed in the right direction, or if there’s some trend in your writing that’s obscuring your ideas. Asking is often the most direct way to make sure you’re doing what your instructor wants and expects.
You can always make an appointment with the Writing Center to review a written essay, to see whether you’ve answered the prompt and organized things clearly. Having a second set of eyes is a great asset, because a tutor can tell you what ideas you are getting across, so that you can decide whether they’re the ideas you want to communicate.
It’s important to begin with bigger concerns first and smaller concerns later. In other words, you shouldn’t worry about grammar and wording until after you’re sure your content and organization are right. You wouldn’t want to spend time cleaning up all your commas and then have to rewrite the content of a paragraph and waste all that work!
Bigger concerns: Content and Organization
- Have you answered the prompt?
- Is all your information accurate and complete? Is there anything you need to add or refocus to make your ideas flow logically?
- Are your main points coming through clearly?
- Does your organization make sense?
Smaller concerns: Sentence and Word-Level Revisions
- Are your transitions smooth?
- Is all of your wording clear and not awkward or confusing?
- Have you formatted your paper and citations correctly?
- Is your grammar clear enough that a reader won’t get confused by your sentences?