Section Revision

Once you’ve gone through Global Revision, you’ll have a paper that’s answering the right question and probably has most of its pieces in the right order. However, some of those pieces may not be as graceful or detailed as they could be. That’s when Section Revision comes into play.

In Section Revision, we look at the larger chunks of our paper — usually paragraphs, though in longer works, we may look at groups of paragraphs, while in shorter works, we may look at a few sentences together — and focus on how they work internally. So Global Revision makes sure we have a paragraph for each point on our original outline, while Section Revision makes sure that those paragraphs actually do what we want them to do.

One of the key components in Section Revision is studying the Topic Sentences of each paragraph. A Topic Sentence is the single sentence that sums up the main point of a paragraph. Traditionally, these appear as the first sentence in a paragraph, though it’s possible to have a paragraph with a topic sentence that shows up later or isn’t present at all. In most of the papers you’ll write in college, topic sentences will be plainly visible as the first sentence, so we’ll start our Section Revision by looking at these.

For each paragraph in a paper, we need to make sure that the Topic Sentence actually sums up what the whole paragraph says. In other words, we need to edit now for unity in our writing. One of the best ways to do this is actually to read the Topic Sentence out loud for one given paragraph, and then to read the next sentence. Then, go back and read the topic sentence again. Read the third sentence. Read the topic sentence… and so on. The sentences won’t flow next to each other — meaning they may sound strange — but they should all be on the same topic. If you find you’re reading “My cat is the best pet ever. Turtles are weird” next to each other, you may need to make some edits to keep all of your animals in the same paragraph.

Section Revision: When Do I Break Up a Paragraph?

Something else to consider in Section Revision is how to break up pieces of information. Traditionally, a paragraph is a group of sentences that are all about the same single topic — whatever is discussed in the topic sentence. However, sometimes, a paragraph seems to go on for too long, or a single topic takes many, many sentences to cover. So how do we know when we should break up a paragraph?

Unfortunately, there’s no single rule about how many sentences it takes to make a complete paragraph. Some paragraphs are two sentences long; others are 20. Most writing books give a general guideline of between 7 and 12 sentences per paragraph, which isn’t a bad rule of thumb but also isn’t a complete answer. We break up paragraphs to help our readers. When one topic has gone on for so long that it seems like a reader might need a pause, it makes sense to start a new paragraph. If it’s still about the same topic, transition words will show our reader this. We can also start a new paragraph to give a long example of a point we’re discussing, or to signal that time has moved forward slightly. (Notice many paragraphs in novels start with time markers, like, “Later that day,” or “An hour later.”)

If I’m writing a paper where I discuss the events of a three-day battle, for instance, it might originally make sense to dedicate one paragraph to each day of the battle. However, as I’m revising, I might notice that the second paragraph is twice as long as the first and third paragraphs. That’s a sign that I should break that paragraph up.

You’ll notice that in most of the reading you do for classes (like textbooks or news articles), paragraphs stay around the same length throughout. Consider those models when you work on your own papers.