1. A Student Guide REVISING AND EDITING

2.  Revising is taking another look at your writing and making changes to it.  Editing is proofreading or correcting errors in capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. REVISING VS. EDITING

3.  Analyze sentence lengths – You need to make sure you have a balance of short, medium, and long sentences. Also, avoid run-on sentences by using punctuation. REVISING

4.  Sentence variety contributes to the organization and presentation of the topic throughout the essay. REVISING

5.  Varied sentence types, lengths, and constructions produce a freshness of expression, insight into the writing situation, a sense of the writer’s voice and tone, and they demonstrate creative writing strategies. REVISING

6.  Add Dialogue – You may add dialogue by sharing interesting quotes with your reader or by using a conversation between two or more people to make a point. REVISING

7.  Show, Don’t Tell – Let your reader experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than by telling them facts. REVISING

8. CUPS  Capitalization – capitalize the first word of every sentence, names of people, places, and proper nouns. EDITING

9.  Understanding – Reread your essay to determine if it makes sense. Indent every paragraph. Add details about your topic. EDITING

10.  Punctuation – End each sentence with the correct punctuation (., ?, !). Use commas to separate lists, and before conjunctions. EDITING

11.  Spelling – Circle all the words you are unsure of, and use a dictionary to check them. EDITING

12.  Read your paper aloud to a friend. Listen for correct grammar and subject verb agreement. REVISING AND EDITING

13.  Give your paper to a peer to edit. Sometimes an extra pair of eyes may see things you missed. REVISING AND EDITING