Revision Strategies of

Student Writers and

Experienced Adult
Writers
Alek, Davis and Jason
UWRT 1103

What is a Revision Strategy?

A process of looking back on your previous work with a new
perspective
Rethinking main ideas
Reconsidering your arguments
Reviewing your evidence
Re-organizing your paper

Why are Revision Strategies Important?

Revision strategies give the author a chance to improve the quality of
their paper
Allow you to add new ideas or improve existing ones
Give you time to reflect
Is the text saying what youre thinking?
Will the reader understand the writing and ideas?
How could you improve your paper?

Revision Strategies of Student Writers

Students dont use the term revision; but teachers do
Instead, they use their own words to describe the changes they make:
Scratch out and do over again
Reviewing
Redoing
Marking out
Slashing and throwing out

These examples of revising focus mostly on vocabulary

Revision Strategies of Student Writers

(Cont.)
Since students focus on vocabulary, they tend to concentrate on the
words separate from their role in the text.
Students place a symbolic importance on their selection and
rejection of words
Meaning, students focus on words as the success or failure of their paper

Most students believe that problems can be fixed from just rewording
This leaves students blind to accidental repetition in their writing
Known as, conceptual repetition

Bottom line: students have a hard time with the revision process
because they cant review their work from a different perspective

Revision Strategies of Experienced Writers

Rewrite
Recall all of your information and then rewrite to stage arguments. Then focus on the
wording and phrasing.

Revise
Ask questions about your writing and then try and answer those questions. You will
find ideas in the writing that should be dropped or changed often.

Revision Strategies of Experienced Writers

(Cont.)
First, write down everything you want to say/argue (first draft)
Typically a lot of rewriting

Figure out how you want to frame and structure the writing (second
draft)
Then revising
Determine your language

Seek to emphasize and exploit the lack of clarity

Everything revolves around emphasis
This means deleting, adding, or reordering words to back up an argument. Constant
revising.

Discussion Questions
Who actively uses strategies to revise their writing?

What strategies did you implement if you have used them before?

What strategies have we used in this class?