Here are some reasons why you should revise your academic papers:

• To ensure that draft is accessible to readers
• To clarify and sharpen argument and focus
• To boost and develop ideas

Editing versus revision

Revising your written work is more than fixing errors; and it is editing. Revision gets done before editing. In general, revising your essay involves seeing it from the eyes of your target readers who cannot read the writer’s mind. Moreover, not resting until you ensure you are as thorough and precise as possible. To revise, you need to think big and extrapolate. In the evidence that your reader points out an issue in, say, paragraph five, then consider checking closely paragraphs four and six to ensure that the issues pointed out in paragraph five are not there too.

Strategies for revising

• Inquire yourself about your weakest point and your strengths when it comes to writing your academic papers. Remember to be honest and truthful to yourself and purpose to improve, especially on your weaknesses.
• Develop a draft outline for your academic writing work. It means you are making a draft outline once you have finished writing your academic paper. It will assist you in viewing the structure and the flow of your paper.
• Highlight your thesis statement, then read each paragraph consecutively as you write down the sticking points from each paragraph on the side margin of each paragraph.
• Once you have your draft outline, check to see if the structure is flowing logically as you had planned. Check to see if your ideas are flowing logically. If your idea does not flow logically, consider rearranging them accordingly.
• Check to see if your paragraphs relate to your thesis statement in some way. If not, then consider incorporating necessary information that will connect your paragraphs to your thesis arguments. In case you get a paragraph that does not fit into your overall paper, consider revising the paragraph, or if it does not work, then you can delete it altogether.
• If you spot gaps in your paper’s logic, then consider adding more information by doing further research.

Highlighter strategy

Make use of highlighters or highlighter on the draft paper since it can help you visualize the location of specific information in your outline and how new information works in the writing process. To achieve this, ensure that you use highlighters with different colors to isolate different content in your paper. For example, you can decide to highlight all evidence found in the paper.

You can consider highlighting one subject using a particular color and highlighting the different subject or contrary subject with another color for comparison papers. For papers that handle multiple points, you can consider different colors to highlight each sub-points and visualize how they work together in your draft outline.

Move and rearrange using a pair of scissors: you can decide to cut your paper as per the paragraph. This way allows each paragraph to become its paper. When you do it this way, you can visualize and even physically rearrange your outline.

Rearrange the paragraphs so that you can view the best way for your organization and the construction of argument and ideas. You will be able to view how the counterarguments fit and even the flow of the academic paper.

Based on your assignment guidelines or prompt, consider coming up with a checklist for your particular literary work.

Paragraphs-based revisions

come out with practical and well-organized paragraphs, comb through each paragraph one by one and examine the following components: Length, transition, progression and logic, focus, and topic sentence. Ensure that the paragraph has a topic sentence that guides the reader on the paragraph’s main or key contents and where the paragraph is heading.

Ensure that the paragraph addresses the topic’s key concerns and does not meander to a new idea or topic. Also, make sure that your ideas and sentences progress logically. Use appropriate transition phrases or words between sentences and do not write sentences for their own sake.

For long paragraphs, consider decomposing them into small and manageable ones so that your readers can understand them.

Get your reader’s response

Allow someone else to see your work and provide you some feedback to improve your work.