One of the most important skills a writer can develop is the
ability to revise a paper. Not only is
this a skill that beginning writers utilize to check for spelling mistakes or
repeated words but expert writers rely on this technique as a means to organize
their thoughts and to improve their papers exponentially. As one masters this skill the quality of
their papers will increase significantly.
First and foremost when revising a paper is knowing the
difference between local changes and global changes. Local changes would be smaller changes to
words or sentences that would make that sentence or that paragraph make more
sense or to clear up a thought or point.
Global changes often include making changes to entire paragraphs or
pages that will affect other parts of the paper and change the overarching
construction of the paper. Whether this
is changing and argument in a persuasive paper to have more of an impact, to
bringing up a different feature in a technical paper to really “wow” an
audience, knowing when and how to make these changes will help one to make more
clear and more interesting papers.
Other skills a person should develop when working on
revisions is to make sure that you have plenty of time for your paper. If you have time to sit down, think about
what you want to write, revise, have others look at your paper to make sure
that you are clearly explaining your meaning then make more drafts and repeat
those steps multiple times, you are probably doing alright. If you are sitting down the night before you
need to present your paper (or turn it in) and are just trying to crank it out
then chances are there are going to be a lot of missed mistakes and the quality
of your paper will suffer.
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