Line Revision: The Last Steps

When students are asked to revise their work, they usually respond by fixing spelling and grammar problems first. This is actually the last thing anyone should do to his or her paper! Just think: If you spent twenty minutes fixing your commas and then find out you’ve answered the whole question incorrectly, all of that work will be erased.

On the other hand, if you’ve got all of your ideas in place, well organized, deeply developed, and unified around central themes, it’s time to start worrying about the individual words you’re using. In Line Revision, we look at Sentence Variety, Vocabulary, and Mechanics.

Line Revision is the work that happens at the sentence level on the paper, meaning it’s when we start to consider individual sentences or words instead of overall main ideas. Before we get to picking on spelling, though, we need to make sure our sentences are in good shape.

One quick fix that we can do during a final sweep through a paper is to make sure our sentences are varied. Sentence variety refers to both making sure that sentences take different forms and that they start in different ways.

Sentences should use different structures.

Though it would be technically correct to write a paper only in simple sentences, it would also be boring for a reader. Consider the difference between these two examples:

It’s easier to read the second example because it uses different types of sentences — both long and short, simple and complex. It sounds more like the way that we think and talk. Simple sentences are useful for emphasis, but papers need all kinds of sentences to stay interesting.

Sentence Variety: Sentences should start in different ways.

We all have favorite words or phrases that we repeat a hundred times a day. Maybe you say “like” in nearly every sentence; maybe you add “right?” to the end of things you say, or maybe you yell “No!” to your kids a hundred times a day. In writing, these little habits show up and distract a reader from our main point. When we edit for Sentence Variety, one thing we do is cut out those repeated phrases and words.

We also want to make sure that our sentences are starting in different ways. It’s fine for two sentences in a row to have the same word at the beginning, but when it expands to three sentences, then our reader will be distracted. Here’s an example of a paragraph without variety:

I have lived in a small town for most of my life. I know everyone who lives near me. I have always wanted to live in a larger town. I hope that someday I can live somewhere a little bigger. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but I want to try.

Here’s another example:

Sometimes, I like to go ice skating. Often, I fall down. Then, I get cold. Later, I have bruises. Finally, I don’t like to skate that much.

Though these are exaggerated, both happen — particularly when we’re writing about ourselves. Look through your own paper and highlight both the words that start your sentences and the way that your sentences start to pick up patterns. Some of us like to start many of our sentences with phrases like, “Being the only movie star in the room, I was instantly famous” or “Having six brothers, I understood what he meant.” Even starting multiple sentences in a row in the same way — for instance, with -ing words — can break up a paper’s flow.

Edit this out by changing up the way you start. Slide a transition word in to break up long strings of sentences starting with I, or join sentences together:

Though I’ve lived in a small town for most of my life, I have always wanted to live in a larger town.

Sometimes, I like to go ice skating even though I fall down. Falling down makes me cold, and it gives me bruises. Okay, maybe I don’t like skating that much.

Edit your paragraphs until they flow naturally without too much repetition.

Line Revision: Vocabulary

As you’re editing for sentence variety, you also noticed if there were certain words or phrases being used again and again. Sometimes this is unavoidable — there’s no other good way to say “covalent bonds” and no other name to call President Abraham Lincoln. However, sometimes, we need to make sure that the vocabulary in our paper is reflecting the correct level of writing. Therefore, we should:

• Eliminate slang phrases unless they’re part of dialogue (direct quote) or were specifcally asked for in the assignment
• Eliminate clichés
• Eliminate useless phrases: “It goes without saying,” “Throughout history,” “Since the beginning of time”
• Eliminate jargon — unless it’s been asked for.

What’s a cliché? What’s jargon? Clichés are sayings we overuse to describe things:

• Take one for the team!
• Little did I know…
• That’s the pot calling the kettle black!
• It’s not you, it’s me
• It’s a blast from the past

There are hundreds of clichés out there, so it’s impossible to avoid them all. You can start with this great list. However, as you’re tightening your writing, look at any phrase that’s vague or strange; think about whether there’s a better way to say it, and then replace them.

Likewise, jargon is terminology that’s known only to a set group of people. We use jargon often in the workplace, and it can be appropriate in writing — if our audience will understand it. If you’re an expert on a topic, you likely use jargon to describe it:

The precis of the piece was the importance of recursive learning.

If you’re not a Great Big English Nerd (TM), that sentence is a maze. It’s full of jargon. My audience — students learning about writing — wouldn’t understand it. So I need to eliminate the jargon by putting in words that my audience knows or can figure out:

The summary of the piece was that working on the same piece again and again is important.

Line Revision: Using a Thesaurus Wisely

When we talk about punching up the language in a piece by expanding the vocabulary, it’s tempting to turn directly to a thesaurus and begin dropping in the biggest words we can find. In fact, this is a solution many student writers turn to when they’re trying to get a paper to “sound more academic.”

The truth about academic writing isn’t that it’s always filled with big words: good academic writing may have rare words, but that’s because the goal of academic writing is to explain its topic as clearly as possible. Therefore, academic writers are encouraged to use the best word for the job — which is sometimes a complex word.

However, that job does not get accomplished by plugging in larger words. In fact, longer words can often hide the real meaning — or sometimes, change it altogether. This is because words in the Thesaurus may have the same or simliar meanings, but they don’t always have the same connotations — implied meanings.

Here’s an example:

The women in my family all looked alike. My granmother had been thin, with red hair and green eyes, just like my mom. My sister was thin and red-haired, too.

Let’s say the writer wants to replace the word “thin” in her paper with something else. The thesaurus entry on thin lists these possibilities:

• slender
• skinny
• emaciated
• skeletal

Each of these words means something different, even though they’re all close to meaning “thin.” If we say a model looks “slender,” that’s usually considered to mean she looks thin but fit or healthful; a “skinny” model might be seen more negatively. The words “emaciated” and “skeletal” are usually used to describe someone who is so thin they appear to be starving. If this writer simply replaced “thin” in her paper with “emaciated,” because it’s the longest and most exotic sounding, it might lead her reader to think something was wrong with her family members.

So the rule for using a thesaurus is, simply, not to use words that you don’t already know. Replacing “thin” with “slender” above would work; “skeletal” would make us wonder if something is wrong with this family.

Line Revision: Final Steps

The final thing to look at in revising is the grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Only once everything else has been settled should we focus on these small details.

But how do we know what to fix?

The truth is, finding these errors in our own work is almost impossible. If I don’t know how to spell “clique,” I’m not going to notice it’s spelled incorrectly in my own paper. Therefore, line editing — the work of finding punctuation and spelling errors — can be the most frustrating part of the revision process.

There are three things you can do to relieve some of this frustration:

First, know your own patterns.

If you have critiqued or graded work from another writing class, make sure it’s nearby when you’re revising the new piece. Look for patterns, such as the same error being corrected more than once on the same page.

You can also use online grammar diagnostics to figure out where your particular challenges lie. I’ve linked a few to the side here; we’ll also complete one in class. If you had to take a placement test to get into your Writing course, you can also review the scores there for some ideas.

Having a reliable grammar book that you trust and understand will be the best resource to help you correct these errors. A campus writing center can also be useful as the assistants there are usually trained to help work on skills instead of to act as editors who fix every problem.

There are dozens of great web sites that review particular problems and patterns, too. Look for sites that aren’t trying to sell you anything (like an editing service or an online book).

Second, try reading out loud to catch errors like repeated wordings, missing words, or awkward or confusing phrasing.

You can read aloud to yourself, read aloud and record yourself, read to a friend or peer tutor, or — if you dread the experience of reading aloud, you can ask someone to read to you (again, a good task for a peer tutor or roomate or partner).

Third, when in doubt, leave it alone.

There are a thousand helpful ideas about grammar and punctuation, but few of them are actually true. The longer you stare at a comma, the more confusing it becomes. In most papers, mechanics are only worth a fraction of the grade, and the major points will be taken away when the commas, periods, spelling, and phrasing takes away from the meaning. So if you’ve done your job revising up to this point — if everything is in order, if everything makes sense, if everything is clearly explained with the right words, and if everything sounds right when you read it — then you’ve done everything you can.

And now, your revising work is done — so you’re ready to do it all again!