19 How Do I Revise and Edit My Own Work?

Have your ever been told to “revise” your paper or to “edit” a peer’s paper? What do these words mean? Just as writing is a process, effective revising and editing also involves several steps. If you focus on one step at a time and take a break between steps, you’ll be able to make sure that your paper includes all of the required elements in the right order and that your academic style is confident and competent. You can also use a step-by-step prompt with any generative AI tool to get specific feedback about each area.

Step One: Revise for Unity

When we talk about unity in academic writing, we mean that all of the parts of the paper are unified with the thesis statement. When you revise for unity, you’re making sure that you have a clear thesis statement and that every part of the paper clearly supports the thesis statement in some way. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you revise for unity:

• Does the paper meet the requirements of the assignment?​
• Do all parts of the essay support the thesis statement?​
• Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence that relates to the thesis statement?​
• Do all of the sentences in each paragraph relate to the topic sentence?​
• Are your paragraphs too short?​ An effective paragraph has a clear topic sentence, 3-4 supporting sentences with specific, concrete details, and a concluding sentence.
• Are your paragraphs too long?​ If you see a “monster” paragraph (a page in length or more), you may want to make sure that the paragraph has unity. Even though you may have written about a single topic, when your paragraph is too long, you have probably shifted your ideas about the topic. It’s okay to write two (or more) paragraphs about a single point.

Step Two: Revise for Adequate Support

In this step of the revision process, you’ll want to look at the ideas and sources (if required) that you use to support your thesis statement.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Does the paper use sources and/or relevant personal experiences to support the thesis?​ In some types of essays such as narrative essays, you’ll rely on your relevant personal experiences. In other types of essays such as exploratory research, you’ll rely more on sources. Argument essays often include a mix of sources and relevant personal experiences.
• Are the sources/experiences used relevant to the thesis? Make sure that the examples you use clearly support your thesis statement. For example, if you are writing a paper about apples and you have an example that involves oranges as support, you may need to find a better source.​
• Are direct quotes used? In papers where source use is required, a good rule of thumb is to make sure that direct quotes are no more than 10% of your overall paper. If your paper is 1000 words long, no more than 100 words should be directly quoted. If you directly quote, you must cite your source. Here is an example of a direct quote: “To be or not to be: That is the question” (Hamlet 3.1).​
• Does the paper paraphrase sources to support the thesis?​ When your teacher asks you to use sources, you will likely need to paraphrase, or put quotes into your own words. Even when you paraphrase, you should still cite your source. Here is a paraphrase of the direct quote above: Hamlet wonders whether existence has a point (Hamlet 3.1)​.
• Is there enough support? The answer to this question will depend on the assignment requirements. One way to make sure that your paper has enough support is to make sure that you have met the word or page count requirements for the assignment. If your paper is too short, you may want to consider adding more information from one of your sources or even finding another source.​ You could also consider adding relevant personal experience, depending on the assignment requirements.
• Are your quotes and paraphrases all integrated into your paper? One of my students once coined the phrase “dead-dropped” for a quote that was dropped into a paper without context. You should check all of your direct quotes to make sure that you have introduced them appropriately. For example, you can use the phrase “According to X” to introduce a direct quote (where X is the author’s name).

Step Three: Revise for Coherence and Cohesion (Flow)

Once you’ve determined that your paper has unity and that you included adequate support, you’ll need to check the coherence or “flow” of your essay. When we talk about coherence in writing, we mean that the ideas flow logically and are connected and organized. One easy way to check this is to read your paper out loud. Do you find yourself stopping and starting, or wondering how one paragraph connects to the next? You may need to include transitions and other cues to help the reader follow your good ideas. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you revise for coherence:

• Do you have an effective introduction and conclusion? An introduction gives you a chance to “hook” the reader, while a conclusion circles back to the introduction and explains “so what?” to the reader. Framing your essay in this way will help your reader to understand your ideas and your point.​ Because the introduction is so important, I often write the introduction to my essays last,  after I have set out all of my ideas and explained why they matter in a conclusion.
• Does the paper flow logically? There are several ways that you can organize your ideas. Time or chronological order makes sense for narratives or for essays where historical context matters. Order of importance may work well for argument, where you can start with either your strongest or your weakest point (inductive or deductive reasoning).
• Do you use transitions to connect your ideas? Transitional expressions are critical to your essay’s flow. ​
• Does the paper “make sense”?​ This is one place that a peer review can really help you. Sometimes my ideas make perfect sense to me–but another reader may struggle to understand how I reach a conclusion or organize my argument. Pay attention to your readers’ comments here.
• Are the paragraphs in the right order, or do you need to move things around to make them more clear?​ One of my own writing challenges is making sure that my paragraphs are in the right order.  Sometimes we get the idea that our paragraphs or even our sentences are “fixed” once we put them on paper, but nothing could be further from the truth! Think of your essay draft as a sandbox. You need ideas to work with, but you may need to shape those ideas differently once you have them on paper. One trick that I use myself is to print my papers out, cut them up into paragraphs, and try moving paragraphs around to see what flows best.

Step Four: Revise for Style

Once you’ve written an effective introduction, organized your paragraphs, and connected your ideas with transitional expressions, it’s time to focus on academic style. One common misconception is that academic style involves big fancy words and passive construction. Here is an example of what some students think of when we talk about academic style:

In the present instance, it must be construed that rhetorical constructs are most efficacious when these constructs elucidate the matter at hand.

And here is the same sentence written in plain English:

As we can see, rhetorical constructs are most effective when they clarify the point we are trying to make.

Remember that the goal of writing, first and foremost, is to communicate. It’s okay to use a fancy word once in a while (my own personal favorite is the verb ameliorate, which means “to make things better”). But in general, it’s best to eschew obfuscation (avoid unnecessarily difficult terms) when writing for an academic audience.

Here are a few things to look for as you revise for academic style:

• Academic (formal) tone—no “you” or “one” because these pronouns are broad and vague (but “I/we” are fine)​
• Appropriate language​
• Clichés and colloquial language​
• Sentence variety (simple, compound, complex)​
• Author voice ​
• Active vs. passive construction​
  Mendoza and Liu (2024) observed that … YES!
  In a study by Mendoza and Liu (2024), it was observed that… NO!​

Note: use a grammar checker as you revise for academic style. For example, the blue squiggly lines in Word’s grammar checker may indicate style problems.

Step Five: Edit for Mechanics/Format

All of us make minor grammar and spelling errors from time to time. And academic format can be tough at first, especially if your teacher requires a citation style that you aren’t used to. For example, I teach APA style in my rhetoric and composition classes because this is the citation and format style that most students will use in their majors. Here’s a quick checklist of things to look for in this final step of the revising and editing process:

• Spelling (pay close attention to words that are often confused, such as “affect/effect”).​
• Punctuation (pay special attention to commas).
• Paragraph formatting–tab  indent and remove spaces before or after paragraphs.
• Citation format. The OWL at Purdue is a good resource for both MLA and APA style.
• Essay format–check your instructor’s requirements and ask for help if you aren’t sure about something.

As you can see, the editing and revising process is an important part of your overall writing process. By taking the time to focus on these five areas, you’ll ensure that your paper is polished and professional.