{"id":694,"date":"2016-06-01T19:15:47","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T19:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=694"},"modified":"2016-07-25T14:32:17","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T14:32:17","slug":"text-concerns-about-revision","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/chapter\/text-concerns-about-revision\/","title":{"raw":"Text: Concerns About Revision","rendered":"Text: Concerns About Revision"},"content":{"raw":"Finally, let's revisit the guidance from the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill once more, to address any concerns we may have about revision.\r\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\r\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">CONCERNS<\/span><\/h2>\r\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Whenever I revise, I just make things worse. I do my best work without revising.<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">That\u2019s a common misconception that sometimes arises from fear, sometimes from laziness. The truth is, though, that except for those rare moments of inspiration or genius when the perfect ideas expressed in the perfect words in the perfect order flow gracefully and effortlessly from the mind, all experienced writers revise their work. I wrote six drafts of this handout. Hemingway rewrote the last page of <i>A Farewell to Arms<\/i> thirty-nine times. If you\u2019re still not convinced, re-read some of your old papers. How do they sound now? What would you revise if you had a chance?<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">What can get in the way of good revision strategies?<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Don\u2019t fall in love with what you have written. If you do, you will be hesitant to change it even if you know it\u2019s not great. Start out with a working thesis, and don\u2019t act like you\u2019re married to it. Instead, act like you\u2019re dating it, seeing if you\u2019re compatible, finding out what it\u2019s like from day to day. If a better thesis comes along, let go of the old one. Also, don\u2019t think of revision as just rewording. It is a chance to look at the entire paper, not just isolated words and sentences.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">What happens if I find that I no longer agree with my own point?<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">If you take revision seriously, sometimes the process will lead you to questions you cannot answer, objections or exceptions to your thesis, cases that don\u2019t fit, loose ends or contradictions that just won\u2019t go away. If this happens (and it will if you think long enough), then you have several choices. You could choose to ignore the loose ends and hope your reader doesn\u2019t notice them, but that\u2019s risky. You could change your thesis completely to fit your new understanding of the issue, or you could adjust your thesis slightly to accommodate the new ideas. Or you could simply acknowledge the contradictions and show why your main point still holds up in spite of them. Most readers know there are no easy answers, so they may be annoyed if you give them a thesis and try to claim that it is always true with no exceptions no matter what.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">How do I get really good at revising?<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">The same way you get really good at golf, piano, or a video game\u2014do it often. Take revision seriously, be disciplined, and set high standards for yourself. Here are three more tips:<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">The more you produce, the more you can cut.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">The more you can imagine yourself as a reader looking at this for the first time, the easier it will be to spot potential problems.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">The more you demand of yourself in terms of clarity and elegance, the more clear and elegant your writing will be.<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">How do I revise at the sentence level?<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Read your paper out loud, sentence by sentence, and follow Peter Elbow\u2019s advice: \u201cLook for places where you stumble or get lost in the middle of a sentence. These are obvious awkwardness\u2019s that need fixing. Look for places where you get distracted or even bored\u2014where you cannot concentrate. These are places where you probably lost focus or concentration in your writing. Cut through the extra words or vagueness or digression; get back to the energy. Listen even for the tiniest jerk or stumble in your reading, the tiniest lessening of your energy or focus or concentration as you say the words . . . A sentence should be alive\u201d (<i>Writing with Power<\/i> 135).<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Practical advice for ensuring that your sentences are alive:<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Use forceful verbs\u2014replace long verb phrases with a more specific verb. For example, replace \u201cShe argues for the importance of the idea\u201d with \u201cShe defends the idea.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Look for places where you\u2019ve used the same word or phrase twice or more in consecutive sentences and look for alternative ways to say the same thing OR for ways to combine the two sentences.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Cut as many prepositional phrases as you can without losing your meaning. For instance, the following sentence, \u201cThere are several examples of the issue of integrity in Huck Finn,\u201d would be much better this way, \u201cHuck Finn repeatedly addresses the issue of integrity.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Check your sentence variety. If more than two sentences in a row start the same way (with a subject followed by a verb, for example), then try using a different sentence pattern.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Aim for precision in word choice. Don\u2019t settle for the best word you can think of at the moment\u2014use a thesaurus (along with a dictionary) to search for the word that says exactly what you want to say.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Look for sentences that start with \u201cIt is\u201d or \u201cThere are\u201d and see if you can revise them to be more active and engaging.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">For more information, please visit our handouts on <a href=\"http:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/handouts\/word-choice\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"s2\">word choice<\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/handouts\/style\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"s2\">style<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<p>Finally, let&#8217;s revisit the guidance from the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill once more, to address any concerns we may have about revision.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">CONCERNS<\/span><\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Whenever I revise, I just make things worse. I do my best work without revising.<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">That\u2019s a common misconception that sometimes arises from fear, sometimes from laziness. The truth is, though, that except for those rare moments of inspiration or genius when the perfect ideas expressed in the perfect words in the perfect order flow gracefully and effortlessly from the mind, all experienced writers revise their work. I wrote six drafts of this handout. Hemingway rewrote the last page of <i>A Farewell to Arms<\/i> thirty-nine times. If you\u2019re still not convinced, re-read some of your old papers. How do they sound now? What would you revise if you had a chance?<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">What can get in the way of good revision strategies?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Don\u2019t fall in love with what you have written. If you do, you will be hesitant to change it even if you know it\u2019s not great. Start out with a working thesis, and don\u2019t act like you\u2019re married to it. Instead, act like you\u2019re dating it, seeing if you\u2019re compatible, finding out what it\u2019s like from day to day. If a better thesis comes along, let go of the old one. Also, don\u2019t think of revision as just rewording. It is a chance to look at the entire paper, not just isolated words and sentences.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">What happens if I find that I no longer agree with my own point?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">If you take revision seriously, sometimes the process will lead you to questions you cannot answer, objections or exceptions to your thesis, cases that don\u2019t fit, loose ends or contradictions that just won\u2019t go away. If this happens (and it will if you think long enough), then you have several choices. You could choose to ignore the loose ends and hope your reader doesn\u2019t notice them, but that\u2019s risky. You could change your thesis completely to fit your new understanding of the issue, or you could adjust your thesis slightly to accommodate the new ideas. Or you could simply acknowledge the contradictions and show why your main point still holds up in spite of them. Most readers know there are no easy answers, so they may be annoyed if you give them a thesis and try to claim that it is always true with no exceptions no matter what.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">How do I get really good at revising?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">The same way you get really good at golf, piano, or a video game\u2014do it often. Take revision seriously, be disciplined, and set high standards for yourself. Here are three more tips:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">The more you produce, the more you can cut.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">The more you can imagine yourself as a reader looking at this for the first time, the easier it will be to spot potential problems.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">The more you demand of yourself in terms of clarity and elegance, the more clear and elegant your writing will be.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">How do I revise at the sentence level?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Read your paper out loud, sentence by sentence, and follow Peter Elbow\u2019s advice: \u201cLook for places where you stumble or get lost in the middle of a sentence. These are obvious awkwardness\u2019s that need fixing. Look for places where you get distracted or even bored\u2014where you cannot concentrate. These are places where you probably lost focus or concentration in your writing. Cut through the extra words or vagueness or digression; get back to the energy. Listen even for the tiniest jerk or stumble in your reading, the tiniest lessening of your energy or focus or concentration as you say the words . . . A sentence should be alive\u201d (<i>Writing with Power<\/i> 135).<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Practical advice for ensuring that your sentences are alive:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Use forceful verbs\u2014replace long verb phrases with a more specific verb. For example, replace \u201cShe argues for the importance of the idea\u201d with \u201cShe defends the idea.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Look for places where you\u2019ve used the same word or phrase twice or more in consecutive sentences and look for alternative ways to say the same thing OR for ways to combine the two sentences.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Cut as many prepositional phrases as you can without losing your meaning. For instance, the following sentence, \u201cThere are several examples of the issue of integrity in Huck Finn,\u201d would be much better this way, \u201cHuck Finn repeatedly addresses the issue of integrity.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Check your sentence variety. If more than two sentences in a row start the same way (with a subject followed by a verb, for example), then try using a different sentence pattern.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Aim for precision in word choice. Don\u2019t settle for the best word you can think of at the moment\u2014use a thesaurus (along with a dictionary) to search for the word that says exactly what you want to say.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">Look for sentences that start with \u201cIt is\u201d or \u201cThere are\u201d and see if you can revise them to be more active and engaging.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li4\"><span class=\"s1\">For more information, please visit our handouts on <a href=\"http:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/handouts\/word-choice\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"s2\">word choice<\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/handouts\/style\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"s2\">style<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-694\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Revision and Adaptation. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Lumen Learning. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Revising Drafts. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: The Writing Center at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/handouts\/revising-drafts\/\">http:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/handouts\/revising-drafts\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives <\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":19,"menu_order":35,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Revising Drafts\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"The Writing Center at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/handouts\/revising-drafts\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-nc-nd\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Revision and Adaptation\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"Lumen Learning\",\"url\":\"\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"44afaa6e-f883-4d00-a79f-53d243c04447, 07e4f9dd-5163-4d23-9e41-07b9a0f92f47","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-694","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":19,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694\/revisions\/695"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/19"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}