A Writing Center Workshop Finishing Touches

Do You Meet The Assignment Guidelines? Double check your rubric, and the instructions provided by your professor before you begin editing. Do you meet all the requirements? Are all the necessary topics addressed and supported? Is there anything else that needs to be added, or supported?

Major and Minor Edits Before you begin the final editing process for your paper, make sure your paper contains the following: A well-developed focus (thesis) statement. Organized and developed ideas and concepts that expand on your focus statement. Logical transitions between ideas. Proper support for your ideas A properly cited references page.

Major Edits Major structural edits may be necessary for some portions of your paper. To decide if you need to make major edits, ask the following of your paper: Is there a central focus, or purpose to my paper? Is my paper organized? Are my subtopics properly supported? If you answered no to any of the above, you may need to make some major edits.

Honing Your Focus If you have questions on focus, the following questions may help. What is it that your paper is trying to say? What is my goal, my purpose for writing this paper? What is the central issue at stake, and what are you trying to prove, or disprove?

Editing Your Organization Organization is key to an effective paper. To make sure your paper is well organized the following questions may help. Does your paper make logical transitions? Is there some relation between the topics in your paper? Are all the like ideas grouped together in your paper?

Developing Your Topics In addition to having a strong focus, it is also critical to properly develop your subtopics. Have your provided all the information necessary to make a strong argument? Have you addressed possible counterpoints to your argument? Are all your subtopics working together to support your primary claim?

Minor Edits Proof-Reading Your Paper Try reading your paper backwards from the last sentence to the first. Reading it this way allows you to take each line out of context, and really focus in on errors at the sentence level. Proof-reading serves the purpose of making sure your paper makes sense at the sentence level and in terms of spelling, and grammar.

Minor Edits Documentation Style Is your paper properly formatted in the style assigned by your instructor? Typically MLA or APA style. For concerns with documentation style, it is best to review the sample paper. Prior to beginning a paper, it may be best to also make use of the paper templates available on the Writing Center’s web site.