Simple Steps to Writing, Revising and Editing an essay

http://www.whitesmoke.com/how-to-write-an-essay.html

Writing a good essay requires refined critical thinking, which can be improved by experience. But one of the key elements to a good essay is form, and we are here to help you with it. There are numerous forms of writing that we face everyday. The following is an explanation of the process of writing in a simple and understandable way.
An essay can have many purposes, but the basic structure is basically the same. You may be writing an essay to argue for a particular point of view or to explain the steps necessary to complete a task.
Either way, your essay will have the same basic format.
If you follow these simple steps, you will find that writing an essay is easier than you had initially thought.

  1. Select your topic.
  2. Choose the thesis, or main idea of your essay.
  3. Prepare an outline or diagram of your main ideas.
  4. Outline your essay into introductory, body and summary paragraphs.
  5. State your thesis idea in the first paragraph.
  6. Finish the introductory paragraph with a short summary or goal statement.
  7. In each of the body paragraphs the ideas first presented in the introductory paragraph are developed.
  8. Develop your body paragraphs by giving explanations and examples.
  9. The last paragraph should restate your basic thesis of the essay with a conclusion.
  10. After you followed these easy steps your writing will improve and become more coherent. Always remember, form is only a part of the process. You become a better writer primarily by reflecting and analyzing rather than memorizing.

Guidelines on how to revise an essay

The best writers revise. And they revise again. Then they revise yet again. So, given that professional writers revise, it would be wise for beginning and intermediate writers to revise, too. One Professor, when asked how students could improve their writing, said these three words: "Revise, revise, revise." It's such a common mantra for writers and artists that a recent online search came up with over 16,000 hits for the phrase!

Revision means, literally, to see again. There are several stages to revision.
The first thing to consider is the goal of revision: Writing to communicate.
In order to communicate well, here are some guidelines to consider while you revise:

  1.    Don't necessarily include everything
  2.    Especially for academic writing, include a thesis, which is your answer to a (researched) question or your (reasoned or researched) position on a debatable topic.
  3.    Include clear markers or transitions, citation of sources, and other help so readers can follow you along the path of your thoughts (argument, analysis, critique)
  4.    Include the main points and the highlights from your research or reasoning that which supports your thesis, and that which might appear to contradict your thesis except that you, as a "tour guide," will explain why the material doesn't fit or why the contradictory material is wrong, and that which readers might reasonably expect, given your subject matter
  5.    Include support and evidence for each main point, which might be logical reasoning, explanations, data, and arguments of your own; or evidence, arguments, and theories from other sources (properly credited)
  6.    Often you should include answers to these questions: who, what, where, when, why and how about the whole topic; about major sources, theories, concepts; and about major developments related to the topic
  7.    Make sure the result is clear communication that will be understood by your intended audience


Revision gives new life to your writing. The first stage involves going through the draft and reorganizing main ideas and supporting ideas so that they are grouped in a way that is understandable to your reader. Your organization will usually first put forward stronger points (in an argument), earlier information (for a narrative), or background (in many cases). However you organize, your readers need to understand what you are trying to communicate.
After that, refine your arguments and evidence, your descriptions, and all of the details, so that they give a sense of the writing being of one piece, or a whole. Let one description arise from another, or one piece of evidence support the next. Put all of the pieces in that are needed, and remove those that are not.

Even the most experienced writers make inadvertent errors while revising--removing a word or adding a phrase that changes the grammar, for instance.
Here are some tips to help focus your revision:

  1.     Have other readers looked it over? A professor, boss, classmates, colleagues, roommates or friends
  2.     Explain to a few different people what you've written, same group as other readers
  3.     Read more on the topic (new sources, but also revisit already cited sources)
  4.     Make an outline or highlight your draft as though it were a reading
  5.     Set it aside for a day or two (longer, if possible) and then re-read it
  6.     Read aloud to yourself
  7.     Read it backwards
  8.     Make a presentation. Presenting your paper orally to others often helps shape and focus your ideas
  9.     Write a new introduction and conclusion, and then see if the paper fits the new introduction and the new conclusion
  10.     The final stage or revision is copy editing, or proof reading.

Tips for editing a paper or an essay


Good editing or proofreading skills are just as important to the success of an essay, paper or thesis as good writing skills. The editing stage is a chance to strengthen your arguments with a slightly more objective eye than while you are in the middle of writing.

Indeed, editing can turn a good essay or paper into a brilliant one, by paying close attention to the overall structure and the logical flow of an argument. Here we will offer some tips on how to edit a paper or an essay.
Tips for editing a paper or essay:
1.    Read over other things you have written, to see if you can identify a pattern in your writing, such as problematic punctuation, or repeated use of the same adjectives.
2.    Take a break between the writing and editing.
3.   Read by sliding a blank page down your lines of writing, so you see one line at a time. Even in editing or proofreading, it is easy to miss things and make mistakes.
4.    Read the paper out loud to get a sense of the punctuation, and make any changes to parts that feel unnatural to read.
5.    Allow someone else to read over your paper, fresh eyes can see things you will not see.

Get WhiteSmoke!