Revision is the most important stage of the writing process. Too often, it’s overlooked by students because of time constraints, or because they’ve never learned how to do it well.

There are many ways to critically read, reflect on and revise a paper. But, it’s hard to read your paper with an eye for too many concerns at the same time. For example, when I’m revising a draft, I find it difficult to look at transitions, cohesion of my argument and conciseness all at the same time. When I attempt to do that, I get overwhelmed and end up closing my computer. Instead, I suggest adopting a more systematic approach, going through your paper with one concern in mind each time you read it. In this chapter, we’ve divided these concerns into “high” and “low.”

Adaptations

Material in this section has been adapted from Chapter 16 Peer Review: Questions for Reflection in Business Writing for Everyone by Arley Cruthers, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.