SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 3, Lesson 21

Revising: Preliminary to Presentation Draft

Introduction
It's time to go to class. Before you go, you run through your mental checklist. Do you have your keys, your psychology book, your dictionary, your student id card? Oh, wait...you need your phone, too, because your friend is supposed to call you after class to let you know when you're supposed to meet. And maybe you don't need to dictionary, because you'll be writing your essay in the library, and they'll have one you can use; scratch that off the mental list.

Does this scenario sound familiar? If you're like most people, you revise lists and other projects everyday. As circumstances change or you discover that you no longer need something, you add or subtract information from grocery lists, meeting agendas, to-do lists, homework plans, and more.

When you write an essay for a school assignment, you'll make similar changes. As the circumstances of your writing change - as you find more information or details, or you realize that the focus of your paper has changed, for example - you'll need to add, subtract or change parts of your paper, too. The process is called revision and everyone who writes needs to revise at some point (even teachers!).

What is revision?
To revise a paper or project is simply to take another look at it, to re-see it. When you revise a paper, you need to see the whole thing - from the general overview to the smallest details, but not at the same time. Since there's so much to look for, it's a good idea to work through an essay draft several times, rather than just once. Keep in mind that each time you revise, you find new potential in your text. You'll find new ideas to incorporate and new areas to improve.

Many people grumble and try to avoid revising. It seems like such a hassle. If you can just write a great first draft, a revision won't be necessary, right? Well, perhaps, but how many times have you gotten that grocery list right without taking a second look? And, realistically, how many people write a great first draft? Your essay may seem fine when you save that first draft, but it always can be much better. Besides, if you leave enough time to revise, you'll take a lot of pressure off yourself. Knowing that you'll be working on the paper in the future, you'll allow yourself to relax and just jot down ideas in the beginning of the process. It's much easier to get great content if you don't worry at the beginning of an essay about searching for just the right word or punctuation mark.

Thinking Drafts to Presentation Drafts
It might help if we think of drafts as steps in a process. Many essay projects allow from two to six weeks to complete. Instructors give you this much time because they expect you to complete more than one draft of the essay. They expect you to improve and deepen your thinking, develop and strengthen your thesis statement and how you've supported it, and reconsider how you've organized the information. One way to visualize this process is to name your drafts.

1. Thinking draft: A thinking draft (some might call it a zero draft or a rough, rough draft) is not exactly an essay draft at all, but your brainstorming and idea-level notes. These notes may be just a list or freewriting or clusters of ideas Link: (See Chapter 3, Lesson 3 in this Handbook for idea development methods). But this thinking draft is your first attempt at seeing what you want to say.

Using one of several different brainstorming methods, write quickly, getting all ideas out and on paper without concern for neatness or form. The draft you create this way probably won't be a work of great literary value, but it will be a free, uncensored exploration of your ideas. Besides, no one is supposed to see it yet anyway. This one's for you!

2. Preliminary draft: From the thinking draft, you move to your first essay draft, which most people call a rough draft. We'll call it a preliminary draft, which means, "preparing for the main event." Here is where many students stop writing. Some students say: "I've said what I have to say and there's no reason to go any further." But, if you think of the preliminary draft as "rough" and as something that is not yet the "main event," your view changes. The preliminary draft is the equivalent of going to school in your underwear! You can see that this early draft can be embarrassingly full of partially explained ideas and misfires in thinking.

What do you do after you finish that thinking draft? Take a break if you need one, or go right into the preliminary draft if your brain is ready to keep working those ideas. If you've written your paper on the computer, print out a copy of the paper to work with, and settle in comfortably. However, some people find it easier to work with paper and pen to handwrite the thinking draft. Either method is fine.

As you start the process of revision from thinking to preliminary draft, try to concentrate on the overall meaning and ideas of the essay, rather than on grammar or punctuation. Remember, the preliminary draft is still "underwear," so it doesn't need fancy clothes just yet. Of course, you'll need some kind of point or main idea (thesis) and a series of supporting points for that thesis. If you're writing a poem or short story instead of a more academic essay, this draft is still the place to concentrate on developing your ideas rather than how it looks.

3. Revised draft: Now put some clothes on that preliminary draft! Revise it at least once, perhaps twice, before you take it to class for a peer group's help or for your teacher to read. Most people want to be seen in the best light; they want others to see them as thoughtful and careful people. But showing a preliminary draft that hasn't been revised at all doesn't show you in your best "clothes," so to speak.

Once you've written your preliminary draft, give yourself a break. Ideally, set the first draft aside for about a day, but even a 30-minute break can help clear your head and refresh your perspective. Take a quick walk to the mailbox, grab some coffee, and just get away for a little while. Are you ready to work again? Then, read through your draft as SLOWLY as you can. {See Editing for Content} If you do it well, revising means asking and answering questions about your own writing. You'll have to keep an open mind about your work and go back over it several times.

If you are using a hard copy printed from the computer, make lots of notes to yourself in the margins. If you are working on the computer, you can embed comments and changes as you go. You might want to consider writing yourself questions as you go, such as, "What is the point here?" and "Look for more detail!" Your notes will allow you to focus on finding areas to improve and make the changes later.

For the revised draft, focus most intently on your ideas. So, take another look at the thesis (Do you have one? Where is it? Is it at the end of the essay instead of the beginning?), content, and organization. When you're finished looking at the bigger ideas, then you can begin to correct wordy or unclear sentences and some grammatical errors.

4. Presentation draft: Your teacher may look at your revised draft and offer you some comments. SMARTHINKING writing e-structors will do the same when you send your essay to the Essay Center for feedback. With those comments and some time away from the essay to get a fresh view, you're ready to write the presentation draft. Some people consider the presentation draft as the final one. In some classes, it is your final shot at writing a strong essay and this is the draft that will be graded. However, in a class where you'll be preparing an end-of-term portfolio, you'll probably have more opportunities to revise and perfect the draft.

Writing the presentation draft means going back-one more time-through the steps outlined below for the revised draft. Make sure your essay says what you want it to convey. If you've been revising from hard copy, make sure that you add all necessary changes to your digital (computer) copy. Then, when you believe you're finished, title the essay and print it out. Reread from this hard copy one more time for grammatical errors or tiny mistakes; if you find any, go back to the digital copy and correct them. When you've completed this process, then you're ready to present this draft to your reader/s.

Actually, if you think of writing as a process and in terms of a series of drafts, you'll see that an essay, story, or article never really is "finished" or "final." Even teachers continue to revise and perfect the essays that they send to journals for publication. People in business also have to write numerous drafts before their business letters or memos are ready for sharing with others. Sometimes, getting and keeping a job relies on strong, thoughtful drafting skills!

Revision Points of Focus

Here are some specific focal points to help you in your revision process.

• What is the assignment? Be sure you understand what your instructor asked you to write. Then, decide whether you've fulfilled that assignment or not. This can be a tough decision, so you'll have to think carefully as you read. If your instructor asked you to observe and describe people in a museum and you spent five pages telling what you think of the museum, you haven't fulfilled the assignment.

• What is your purpose in writing this paper? What do you hope to accomplish? For some papers, your purpose might be to persuade your reader that your position is right (or, at least, reasonable), to argue for a certain action, or to use a story to prove a point. When you know what your purpose is, you can decide whether your writing carries it out. (For more information about purpose, see Chapter 1, Purpose.)

• Who is your audience? How much does that audience know about your subject? The answer to this question is important because it helps you determine how and what to write. After all, if you are writing for a group of astronauts, your paper on rockets will look quite different than a paper on rockets written for your science fiction in literature class. (For more information about audience, see Chapter 2, Audience.)

• What is the main idea of your paper? What is your thesis? What sentence in your paper expresses that main idea (this should be your thesis)? Many instructors expect to see a thesis statement at the end of the introduction, but others won't expect a thesis at all until the conclusion. If you are not sure of your instructor's expectations, this is the time to ask him or her. (For more information about thesis statements, please see Chapter 3, Lesson 6: Thesis Development.)
  

  Can you highlight your thesis sentence? If you can't find it, then clarifying and stating your main idea is your first task. (Hint: Sometimes, the thesis is at the end of the first draft; oddly enough, we often write ourselves into a thesis and realize what we really want to say by the end of the first draft!)

• What are the main points you make about your central idea? Write out the sentences that express those main points or highlight your topic sentences in each paragraph. Do they actually support your thesis? The topic sentences are your reasons for why the thesis is true, and it is important for you to be able to identify them.

• Do you have adequate support for each of those main points? Do you have evidence for each reason? Evidence is the detail that you provide for each paragraph. Some kinds of evidence are examples, authorities in the area you're studying, statistics, and anecdotes (short, true narrative stories).

If you're not sure, on another piece of paper, write a brief summary of the support you used for each point. You can use your answers to the questions about thesis, main points and support to develop a basic outline of your paper. That outline can help you to double-check that you've done what you set out to do.

• Does your paper have unity? Do all the parts of the paper say something specific about your thesis statement? Essays for most college courses are expected to support the thesis, but not to diverge into irrelevant details that may be interesting, but have nothing particular to add to the essay's thesis. Your teacher will let you know if s/he has different expectations.

• Does your paper have coherence? Can the reader easily see how you get from one point to the next? Are the relationships between your ideas clear and logical? Do you have good transitions or signposts both within and between your paragraphs?

• Do you have an overall method of organization for your paper? What is it? Do you think that is the most appropriate method for organizing your ideas? Are your paragraphs arranged in a logical order? Organization relates directly to the purpose of the essay, so check your answers to the second question above. (For more information about how to organize your ideas, please see Chapter 3, Lesson 18: Techniques for Expository Writing: Tools of the Trade.)

• Does your essay have a planned, thoughtful opening and closing? Is your introduction interesting? Does it provide necessary background material for your audience to understand what you're writing about and why?

  Does your conclusion summarize your main points? Does it offer unanswered questions for readers to consider or other "food for thought"? (For more information about introductory and concluding paragraphs, please see Chapter 3, Lesson 19: Writing Introductions and Conclusions.)

• What is the overall tone of voice and level of formality of your essay? Tone, which conveys your attitude toward the topic and audience, can be serious, friendly, sarcastic, respectful, stuffy (very, very formal), and critical. Is the tone appropriate for your assignment? Do you maintain that same tone of voice throughout the paper?
  

  Does your language match the tone? If you're writing seriously, as is appropriate in most school essays, you'll need to avoid slang words like scummy, kid, geek, and grossed out; instead, use more formal words like dirty, child, unpopular, and sickened.
  

  Levels of formality range from very informal to formal to the pretentious and stuffy. As a rule, avoid stuffy language such as commence, terminate, eliminate, and masticate; instead, use formal, but direct words like begin, end, rid, and chew.

Editing versus Proofreading
This kind of revision work that we've been doing on the revised draft is called "editing." That level of thoughtful editing takes you to your presentation draft. The process is time-consuming, but it's worth it to have a strong presentation draft for your readers. For additional editing help, see "Editing for Content" (Chapter 3, Lesson 22) and "Editing for Clarity" (Chapter 3, Lesson 23) in this Handbook.

Now, you are ready to work on the proofreading. Only when you're sure that you're satisfied with the idea-level work outlined above should you move to working with grammar and punctuation. After all, you can expect to make several changes in content and organization in the early drafts, so why agonize over comma placement in a sentence that may not survive your revision? Put your efforts on these "surface" issues only when you're sure you'll keep the sentences in your presentation draft. "Proofreading Strategies," Chapter 3, Lesson 24 of this Handbook, can guide you in accurate proofreading.

Exercise
rciseThere's no better place than your current or next essay to practice these revision steps. Mark dates in your calendar for when the essay is due. Working backwards from there, give yourself a due date for the thinking and preliminary drafts, the revised draft, and the presentation draft. Then, try out these revision methods and see whether they help you be a more successful writer.

Summary:

Although the steps in this lesson may seem like a lot of work to do for one essay, they become a habit when you practice them. And, learning to revise from a thinking draft to a presentation will pay off in your thinking and writing skills, and probably in your grades, too. The results will be a more polished, more readable paper, and that is worth your effort.