Choosing the basic strategies for revising, rewriting, and editing
Writing is, indeed, a very challenging and daunting process taking much time and effort. Apart from using an appropriate choice of words and word combinations, it also involves such important activities as rereading, revising, and rewriting (Thurman, 2008, p. 15). These processes entail evaluating higher levels of composition, such as tone, organization, and main ideas, and lower levels of composition, such as vocabulary, grammar, style, spelling, and punctuation.
While considering all these aspects, it took me more than one revision for analyzing all writing lapses and for improving my research paper properly. My specific concerns were also connected with using specific techniques and strategies for making my paper errors free where one idea smoothly transits to another. Particularly, I was inclined to use a combination of revising, rewriting, and editing, starting with considering higher levels of the organization and ending with correcting typos, formatting, and grammar. Such a scheme has helped me overcome time management issues and have endowed me with several useful composition skills.
Revising and editing strategies
Considering the higher level of organization
Before proceeding with writing a research paper, much attention was paid to brainstorming ideas under the topic to be analyzed. The primary concern was focused on the analysis of interesting ideas and fresh insights because the topic itself was initially discussed by many other researchers. Therefore, I tried to incorporate all ideas into coherent and interdependent paragraphs where one idea is closely related to another.
While revising the paper for the first time, I was focused solely on the content of my paper to make sure that all ideas are supported by arguments, evidence, and facts. The second step consisted of analyzing the structure of a research paper to define whether there were any declinations from the thesis statement. I also paid specific attention to a paragraph structure that should begin with a topic sentence, reinforced by authors’ ideas and facts, and concluded by my assumptions and conclusions.
Considering lower levels of the organization
While revising the paper for the third time, I paid attention to grammatical and syntactic filling of sentences. Particularly, I looked at word choice, appropriateness of transition phrases, and parenthesis to cut the redundancies or replace them with more relevant phrases. Certain sentences, or part of those, were removed or improved to make the prose finer and more appropriate to a scientific writing style. For example, I tried to use more specific terms related to technology and education and delete the extracts that deviate from the topic and distort the overall impression of a scientific paper.
Formatting and citation style
Once the research paper was revised and edited by the above-mentioned criteria, the final step involved checking format and citation style aspects. I examined thoroughly the overall format, document structure, organization, title page, and reference list. Then, I gave credit to in-text references and citations to make sure that all of them corresponded to APA formatting. I realized that the actual appearance of the document considerably influenced its credibility and content. In this regard, such aspects as margins, font, spacing, and indentation were taken into the deepest consideration.
Assessment of newly-developed skills
I should admit that revision and edition are very important processes enabling students to develop effective skills needed for information processing, structuring, and organizing. In my particular case, these activities contributed to my better understanding of the writing process, developing critical and analytical thinking, and searching for strong arguments and credible sources. For instance, I have managed to slip into a “cause-and-effect” narrative pattern to make all paragraphs logically interconnected and consistent with the subject I chose.
Reference List
Thurman, S. (2008). The Everything Grammar and Style Book: All You Need to Master the Rules of Great Writing. US: Everything Books.