Read your entire essay out loud to catch any errors you might have missed
Just as reading sentences out loud can help you catch awkward passages, reading an entire essay out loud, carefully and slowly, can help you see missing words, extra characters, spelling errors not caught by spellcheckers, and other problems with your paper that can result from carelessness.
REVISING AND EDITING CHECKLIST
During the revision process, keep the following questions in mind.
Ideas
Have you met the guidelines for the assignment? (See "Considering Expectations," p. 621.)
Have you generated an idea that is original enough to make an impact on the reader? (See "Achieving Subtlety," p. 628.)
Is the idea sufficiently focused? (See "Refining Your Thesis Statement, p. 635.)
Structure
Is there an arguable, well-written thesis? (See "Thesis Statements," p. 634.)
Does the introductory paragraph set up the thesis and define key terms in the essay? (See "Introductions," p. 638.)
Are there solid, well-constructed transitions between all major ideas? (See "Transitions," p. 641.)
Does the concluding paragraph tie together major arguments in the essay and bring the whole to a definite conclusion? (See "Conclusions," p. 646.)
Argument
Have you considered how your audience will respond to your arguments? How have you appealed to your audience? (See "Considering Expectations," p. 621, and "Supporting Ideas," p. 649.)
Have you constructed a persuasive ethos? Is it reasonable and knowledgeable? (See "Ethos: The Writer's Appeal," p. 663.)
Are all of your major claims supported with appropriate evidence? (See "Supporting Claims with Evidence," p. 650.)
Do all of the supporting arguments in the essay support the main thesis? That is, are they relevant and focused? (See "Supporting Ideas," p. 649.)
Correctness
Have you integrated all quotations, paraphrases, and summaries smoothly into your own writing? (See "Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing," p. 685.)
Have you properly documented all outside sources according to the style guide required by the assignment? (See "Documenting Sources," p. 690.)
Have you read your essay out loud to check for awkward phrasing and to catch errors that you might miss reading silently? (See "Editing," p. 705.)
Have you proofread carefully and corrected any errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation? (See "Editing," p. 705.)
Credits
Gloria Anzaldua: "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" from Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Copyright © 1987, 1999, 2007, 2012 by Gloria Anzaldua. Reprinted by permission of Aunt Lute Books. www.auntlute.com.
Matsuo Basho: From Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings by Matsuo Basho, translated by Sam Hamill. Copyright © 1998 by Sam Hamill. Reprinted by arrangement with The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston, MA. www.shambhala.com.
Ruth Benedict: Excerpt from Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict. Copyright 1934 by Ruth Benedict; copyright renewed © 1961 by Ruth Valentine. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Wayne C. Booth: "The Rhetorical Stance," College Composition and Communication, Vol. 14, No. 3, Oct. 1963. Published by National Council of Teachers of English.
Calvin Martin Bower: "Boethius' 'The Principles of Music', an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary," Ph.D. dissertation, Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University, 1967, University Microfilms no. 67-15,005. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Nicholas Carr: From The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Copyright © 2010 by Nicholas Carr. Used by permission of Atlantic Books Ltd and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Rachel Carson: "The Obligation to Endure" from Silent Spring. Copyright © 1962 by Rachel L. Carson, renewed 1990 by Roger Christie. Reprinted by permission of Frances Collin, Trustee and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. All copying, including electronic, or re-distribution of this text, is expressly forbidden.
Po Chu-I: "The Flower Market" from Chinese Poems, translated by Arthur Waley (George Allen & Unwin, 1946). Reprinted by permission of The Arthur Waley Estate.
Barry Commoner: Excerpt(s) from The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology by Barry Commoner, copyright © 1971 by Barry Commoner. Used by permission of Frances Collin,
Trustee and Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House LLC for permission.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: From A Woman of Genius: The Intellectual Autobiography of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. Copyright © 1982 Lime Rock Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Lime Rock Press, Inc. Lime Rock Press, Inc., a small independent publisher in Salisbury, Connecticut, commissioned this first English language translation of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz's "La Respuesta a Sor Filotea." The translation was done by award-winning American literary translator Margaret Sayers Peden. The translation first appeared in 1982 in a limited edition entitled: "A Woman of Genius: The Intellectual Autobiography of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz," with photographs by Gabriel North Seymour taken during a Fulbright scholarship year of sites in Mexico associated with Sor Juana's life. In 2012 Professor Peden was awarded the Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation in recognition of her career commitment to excellence.
Christine de Pizan: 3,000 words (pp. 71-85) from The Treasure of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pisan, translated with an introduction by Sarah Lawson (Penguin Classics, 1985). This translation copyright © Sarah Lawson, 1985. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Richard Feynman: From 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!': Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton. Published by Vintage. Copyright © 1985 by Richard P. Feynman and Ralph Leighton. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Garrett Hardin: "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor," Psychology Today, September 1974. Psychology Today © Copyright 2014, www.psychologytoday.com. Reprinted with permission.
Marevisei Kachere: "War Memoir," translated by Chiedza Musengezi, Women Writing Africa: The Southern Region, The Women Writing Africa Project, Vol. 1, ed. M.J. Daymond, et al. Reprinted by permission of ZimCopy—The Reproductive Rights Organisation of Zimbabwe.
Daniel Kahneman: "The Characters of the Story" from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Copyright © 2011 by Daniel Kahneman. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC and Penguin Books Ltd.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor, New York, NY. Copyright © 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., © renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King.
Aung San Suu Kyi: "In Quest of Democracy", from Freedom From Fear and Other Writings by Aung San Suu Kyi, edited by Michael Aris, copyright © 1991, 1995 by Aung San Suu Kyi. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, and Penguin Books Ltd.