3 Academic Paper Hacks: How Do I Revise My Paper?

Most often you will hear someone in your class asking “Who will revise my paper for me?” and most of these students might end up paying a friend or even hiring an editing and proofreading service. First of all, what is revising a paper? A revision is simply the art of viewing the paper once more for purposes of checking how the paper is organized, its accuracy with regards to the instructions provided, checking the style among other things that are self-explanatory when going through the paper in an attempt to revise it. I will break down all the stages of revising a paper properly just like a professional editor and proofreader:

First of all, you need to grasp the very crucial stages of revising a paper. Without following all these steps then the reader will realize that your paper did not go through the two final steps when writing a paper which is editing and proofreading and this might end up wasting so much of your valuable time because most probably you will be asked to re-do the entire paper.

These three tips discussed at length will aid you in revising a paper professionally

Step 1

The first thing you ought to do is to ensure that you have worked on the paper’s organization, structure and making sure that the content is well aligned with the instructions provided by the rubric.

At this crucial stage of writing, some things can be changes which will ensure that the paper is well organized, ideas are well streamlined and the information is perfectly conveyed to the reader.

One of the things that you ought to do is to look over the information and see if you need to re-arrange any of the paragraphs putting in mind the hierarchy of the ideas you have discussed within the paper. Ask yourself, are any of these paragraphs important than the other? What information should have come first, before or after? Come up with a well-organized way of aligning your ideas in some sequence by ensuring that you have looked at the paper from a reader’s point of view.

The second thing you can do is to include more information which is new coming up from a fresh idea. This adds more flavor to the already included idea in the paper and also the fresh idea can serve as a reinforcement of the first original idea. Normally, adding a new idea involves someone else going through what you have written and maybe pointing out what has been left out.

The third thing to do is to delete information which can be information which has been overly repeated, doesn’t make any sense with regards to the subject matter at hand and maybe it doesn’t connect well to the other ideas in other paragraphs hence you can opt to decide to do away with the idea altogether. The thesis statement should guide you in revising your paper since the body of the essay should contain nothing less than what the thesis statement is all about. In simpler terms, everything should be associated with the thesis statement.

Content and Organization key things to look out for:

1) The accuracy of information presented

Ensure that the information presented is accurate, factual, and reliable to the reader. You can gauge the information provided to have:

 Who came up with the information (ensure the sources are correct)

 Why did the person come up with the information

 For who was the information prepared?

 For whom was the information intended

 What was the main purpose of coming up with the information

You should understand that reliable information is dependable, trustworthy, never failing, undisputable, genuine, sincere, and reputable.

2) Subject

 Ensure that your topic is significant and does not combine two ideas or subjects.

 Ensure your topic captures the reader’s attention. It should be interesting.

 Ensure that the topic uses active voice since the passive voice tends to be direct and rather forceful.

 Ensure that you are emphatic in the way your ideas are experienced by effectively showing your position in an empathic way towards the reader.

3) Regarding the important ideas

 Is the main idea supportive?

 Is the main idea strong?

 Is the main idea considerate?- the ideas must be coherent

4) The Introduction

An introduction can be the most challenging to come up with since an introduction provides a basis for the entire argument in the essay and the reader is always keen to read the introduction which gives insight to what is expected to be covered as he or she proceeds to read the paper.

An introduction should answer the following:

 Is the introduction interesting?

 Is the tone right?

 Does the introduction announce the topic in a clear manner?

 Have you defined terms which you will use and the reader might not be in a position to understand?

 Does your introduction provide any background material relevant to what you’re going to write?

5) Conclusion

A conclusion should be:

Ensure that you have reinforced what you have discussed in the paragraphs but do not use a word for word but rather paraphrase to avoid repetition.

Ensure that the language and tone you have used doesn’t leave the reader’s mind to ensure that the main idea has stuck to the reader's mind.

STEP 2: REVISE PARAGRAPHS AND SENTENCES

Ensure the following:

 Your paragraph starts with a proper topic sentence.

 Ensure that the topic is supported by every sentence in the body paragraphs.

 Make sure that there are clear transitions between paragraphs

 Make sure that you have used proper language and the tone is meant for a specific audience that you intend to communicate to.

 Your conclusion does restate the main idea

 Ensure that you have checked your paragraphs for spelling and grammar

 Ensure that the paragraphs are not boring and hectic to read.

 Your sentences are clear and smooth.

 Your sentences do not have any dangling modifiers or a preposition at the end.

STEP 3: TIPS FOR EDITING AND PROOFREADING

This is the final step when writing an academic paper, and at this stage, you have understood your paper very well, and you might end up thinking it’s perfect only to end up overlooking very important things that should be mend before you can print and submit your paper for grading. Here are some tips for editing and proofreading

Just a recap:

1) Check the paper’s organization and structure.

2) Revise the paragraphs sentences and paragraphs.

3) Polish up by editing and proofreading.

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