Revising an Essay
One of the common processes in writing a paper is revision or revising the initial draft. Revising your manuscript gives you the time to check on the errors and whole organization of your essay. It gives you an opportunity to improve your written work. Revision is looking again at the paper to see on how you can improve it by rearranging and restructuring your ideas. It gives you the opportunity to reassess your ideas and check all the errors you may have committed while writing the initial draft. After all, the main purpose is to come up with a perfect written output.
Revision is done when checking the structure and organization of the ideas. Aside from this, we are also able to check errors in grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation through revision. Revising is not simply editing the draft but evaluating the various aspects of the written work. First, as a general rule, the best time to revise a written work is not right after you finished the draft. Let the manuscript sit for a few hours or so and let your mind clear up a little bit. This will make you more prepared in making changes and see the paper in another perspective. One of the common problems in writing an essay is the English language.
Even prolific writers sometimes do commit grammatical errors. This may be a product of hasty writing or something you overlooked that is why revising is so important. There is the common problem on subject-verb agreement wherein the verb should agree on the number of subjects in a sentence. If you are typing your essay in the computer, the sentence with incorrect SV agreement will be underlined green and you could just click it. However, if you are writing the essay, carefully read the sentences and see if singular subjects are followed by singular verbs and plural subjects are followed by plural verbs.
Another common mistake in an essay is the spelling of words. In the computer, misspelled words are underlined by red but when you are writing the essay you have to closely look on the words and detect if they are spelled correctly. If you are unsure of the spelling of a particular word, you might as well consult a dictionary or thesaurus. Lastly, the common mistakes of a writer are the run-on sentences and fragment sentences. Run-on sentences are two complete sentences that are joined together without the use of appropriate conjunction or punctuation.
Looking for run-on sentences is easy, read the sentences and when you feel that you are reading a sentence too long you may need to put a conjunction or punctuation. Fragments, on the other hand, are incomplete sentences. Detecting it is the same as the run-on sentences, you read the sentences and when you feel that a sentence is missing a thought or keeps you hanging, you may have forgotten a subject or a predicate. In the end, read your essay out loud, you may also hear some errors that you may not be able to see.
Sample Essay of Eduzaurus.com