Chapter 17 concerns revising and editing. It is split into two parts, the first half on revising and the second on editing. Each section gives key things to focus on and then strategies for modifying. Revising includes rethinking your document, so that the structure and ideas are sound. We should focus on our writing situation, the soundness of our argument and ideas, how we have used sources, and the structure and organization aspects. Some strategies include saving multiple drafts, highlighting to check the development of our main point, challenging ourselves with questions, and then scanning. Editing, the second half of chapter 17, involves perfecting the sentence structure and word choice. We should focus on the accuracy, conciseness, and consistency, as well as the style aspects we discussed in chapter 16. Editing strategies include reading carefully by pausing, reading aloud, or reading backwards.
Chapter 17 offers excellent advice, especially as we are working on drafting our papers now. I thought it was helpful to distinguish between revising and editing. Revising involves greatly changing your paper by considering bigger picture aspects: the content, flow of ideas, and consistency of sources. It would be foolish to edit first and worry about sentence structure and word choice before you’ve accomplished the revising. I find myself skipping over my own mistakes after awhile, so I thought the advice to read outloud, haltingly, and backwards was cool.
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