How to Revise Intelligently
One of the major tasks in writing is revising. You might ask why there is a need to revise your content. Well, before answering to that question you need to certify first if you had already written a well-organize and good quality content?
Evaluate yourself. Do you think you can fully depend with your first draft that you spend most of your time just to finish it up? Do you think there are no mistakes or any grammatical errors in your content? Are you sure that you had stated your ideas down in your writing in an organized manner and that there is no need to check it up again?
Lastly, are you confident enough that you had constructed your sentences and paragraphs correctly without any incomplete thoughts and excessive words that are unnecessary in your content?
You might feel that your writing is already enough and all set up since you had done everything you could while spending most of your time in writing the first draft. But to tell you honestly, your work is not yet over. If you really like to produce a well-written and a better quality piece, you need to check your work up. If you find out that there are things that you need to add, change or delete, then you should undergo the revision process.
Never turn in a piece without editing it. It’s been said many times, many ways and it remains just as true. If you find the whole process too much work, try being smart about it. It won’t just save you time, it should help you accomplish things much faster.
Step back. Editing immediately after writing your draft is the worst thing you can do. Writing demands closeness and you’ll need to sever that somehow by distancing yourself a little. The distance also lets ideas simmer in your subconscious mind – an invaluable side-effect.
Change the format. If you wrote your article in Word, try reading it as an HTML file. Or read it aloud. Or read it as a hardcopy. Changing the format can change the way you take to the text, often allowing you to uncover mistakes you did not previously catch.
Spend your time wisely. Allot more time to the areas of the text that make the most impact. This means the lead, the conclusion and the main idea. Tweaking one of these can sometimes be enough to see the piece fall into place.
Use the proper tools. Tools will make your life easier. Why check for syntax problems when you can launch a powerful grammar software that will do it at ten times the speed (probably more)? Style issues? Get a style checker that will make your text adhere to your desired stylebooks.
Don’t be afraid to throw everything away. It may not be the smartest idea around, but it begs telling nonetheless. While planning and outlines are crucial to writing, you need to be brave enough to redo your structure when it is called for. It hurts bad, but some instances will paint it as the most viable solution.
Author Bio: See how innovative Powerful Grammar Software instantly can boost your English writing and watch how NLP technology can help you to write perfect emails, essays, reports and letters. More Info.
Category: Writing
Keywords: editing, revising, revision