Editing & Revising: Approaches to Improving Paragraphs for Standardized Tests Time4Writing provides these teachers materials to teachers and parents at no cost. More presentations, handouts, interactive online exercises, and video lessons are freely available at Time4Writing.com. Consider linking to these resources from your school, teacher, or homeschool educational site. The rules: These materials must maintain the visibility of the Time4Writing trademark and copyright information. They can be copied and used for educational purposes. They are not for resale. Want to give us feedback? We'd like to hear your views: Copyright Copyright 2012

Improving writing is a skill that is essential when honing a first draft. Always re-read your writing to make sure that you have expressed yourself effectively and correctly. Standardized tests, particularly the SAT, will present a paragraph and ask how you would revise or edit a sentence. These improvements might require looking at the paragraph as a whole and considering how a sentence relates to its context. Copyright Copyright 2012

The directions will appear on the test as follows: Directions: The following passage is an early draft of an essay. Some parts of the passage need to be rewritten. You will want to read the entire passage and select the best answers for the questions that follow. Some questions are about particular sentences or parts of sentences and ask you how to improve sentence structure or word choice. Other questions ask you to consider organization and development. In choosing answers, follow the requirements of standard written English. The resources on this site and your teacher can help you with this. Copyright Copyright 2012

Here is an example of the first few sentences of a paragraph: (1)"Snow Falling on Cedars is a novel written by David Guterson. (2)It takes place in San Piedro, an island off of Washington.(3)Japanese-American fisherman, Kabuo Miyamoto, is tried for murdering, but he may receive an unfair trial due to the post war anti-Japanese climate. In the context of the paragraph, which revision is most needed in sentence 3? (A) Omit the word "he" (B) Insert "In the story" at the beginning (C) Change the last comma to a semicolon (D) Change "is" to "was" and "may receive" to "received" (E) Change "murdering" to "murder" Copyright Copyright 2012

Answer: The correct answer is E Explanation: He is on trial for the act of murder, which is a noun. The other edit options may seem to make the sentence more clear, but E is a blatant grammatical error. If you did not read through options A-E and chose an earlier one, hopefully you will learn to read the entire essay and check all of the possible answers. The following steps explain why it is important to do this... Copyright Copyright 2012

Step 1 to Revising Paragraphs Make sure that you SLOWLY and carefully read the ENTIRE essay BEFORE you read the questions. Pay attention to the main idea, structure, and sentence connectivity of the whole paragraph. As it is a first draft, you may notice errors. These might not be addressed in the questions, so don't waste your time on them. Copyright Copyright 2012

Step 2 to Revising Paragraphs Once you have a feel for what the paragraph is about: Read the question from start to finish. o Make sure that you understand what is being asked. Try every single answer option. o More than one of the possibilities may improve the sentence, so:  First, eliminate the ones that will not work.  Then, retry the remaining possibilities to see which one is the most necessary. Copyright Copyright 2012

Tip #1 Sentences can be improved by removing or changing redundant words. Example: A phrase like "melancholy sadness" has two words that mean the same thing. Change one of the words or simply take it out. Tip #2 Improve sentences by adding descriptive detail. Example: Rewrite "The dog barked." to "The angry dog barked harshly." Copyright Copyright 2012

Tip #3 If you are still unsure of how to revise a sentence, think about how its context relates to the other sentences in the paragraph. Tip #4 Manage your time wisely. If there is time remaining, you can revisit a question. Mark the place in the test booklet so that you can find it. Copyright Copyright 2012