Revision and Editing

Subtitle
Revision: Adding, Deleting,
Organization, Flow
Check List: HOOK

▪ Hook: Make sure it is captivating. Does it truly make me want to

keep reading? Or is it just a run-of-the-mill sentence that could work
for anyone’s essay?
– Flashback
– Dialogue/Inner Dialogue counts
– Question/Quote (THESE ARE SO GENERIC. YOURS BETTER BE AMAZING!)
– Short choppy sentences
– Repetitive words, phrases
– Are you going to bury your lead? Or tell me right away?? Which way is more
captivating?
– Others????
Check List: FOCUS

▪ Do you have a focus?

– What is it?
– Seriously?
– Right now in one sentence, sum up your essay.
– You SHOULD be able to point right to this sentence.
– Even though personal narratives don’t have a “thesis,” they still for the most part
do. You should be able to point to one sentence that is the heart of your essay
that all other sentences fall into that category.

Lastly, is your essay about YOU?? This is YOUR college essay. They want to know
YOU. Not your mom, or your grandfather, or your sister’s cousins best friend. All of
these people can impact us and shape our lives, but they are still not YOU. Tell your
story. Use your voice.
Check List: TRANSITIONS (COHESIVE)
▪ “Flow is flow.” (if you know this
movie, socially distant high-five. this Cool…so how do I transition if I
means high-five yourself.)
can’t use, for example??
▪ Like I said in the focus, everything
needs to go back to that main idea. ▪ synonyms/antonyms
Do your sentence to sentence
transitions flow? Paragraph to ▪ question/answer
paragraphs?
▪ repetitive words, phrases
▪ Are your transitions formulaic?
– For example, for instance, in conclusion, ▪ anaphora
next, blah blah blah.
▪ effect/result
These are all fiiineeee, but not very creative ▪ cause/explain why
or eye catching.
Especially not for personal narratives and ▪ time relationship
DEFINITLEY not for a college essay. You
want to stand out!
▪ comparison
Check List: PARAGRAPHS

▪ EVERY. NEW. IDEA. IS. A. NEW. PARAGRAPH.

▪ In personal narratives, you have quite a bit of artistic freedom.
▪ The paragraph is basically a really noticeable punctuation mark.
▪ Use your paragraphs to make certain thoughts stand out.
▪ They can be one sentence.
▪ They can be one word.
▪ Paragraphs are powerful. Don’t forget about this tool to get your
point across.
Check List: SHOW, DON’T TELL

▪ I think it is great you have been on the honor roll since kindergarten and
you always get straight As and you’re in band and on the volleyball team
and a manager for the swim team and in your free time you volunteer to
read to elementary kids and your best friend’s cousin’s sisters boyfriend
taught you how to waterski and it was the best adventure of your life.
▪ BUT SO WHAT??? (I mean that in a nice way.)
▪ What have you learned? So many of you list all of these great things to me
but I don’t know what any of it means to you. Evoke my emotion. Make me
feel what you are feeling. Use descriptive words and imagery to get your
point across.
▪ If I told you, you needed more meat in your essay, this is what I am meaning.
Check List: Senses

▪ How do you check if you have done…”show, don’t tell” ??

– Go through your essay and check for your five senses
– Do you have all five?
▪ Sight
▪ Tough
▪ Taste
▪ Hear
▪ Smell
– Is there anywhere you can add a sentence to draw on one of these senses?
– Doing so is really going to draw your reader into your story. If I can hear, see,
smell what it is you are describing…you’re golden.
Check List: LOOPING

▪ Have you ever been told by a teacher, “this is fine, but you need
more here. Expand.”
– Well…what are you supposed to do with that?? You had what you had, so that’s
what you wrote?
– TRY THIS ACTIVITY:
▪ Find a paragraph that needs “more” or you need to “expand.”
▪ Find the sentence that has the most heart.
▪ Circle it. (or highlight and copy below your essay, bc this is 2020 and everything is
online.)
▪ Write on that sentence for 5 minutes.
▪ Circle a new sentence.
▪ Repeat.
▪ Do this until you have something good! Will all of your writing go in your original
paragraph? No. That’s okay. But you will have MORE! Yay!
Editing: Spelling Errors,
Punctuation, Sentence
Fragments, And other things…
Check List: Spelling

▪ Please use your computer wisely with

this. If there is a red line underneath a
word. Fix it.
▪ Homophones can be tricky. Typically, it
will have a blue line…so you should fix
that as well.
▪ Numbers below 10: SPELL OUT.
Check List: CAPITALIZATION
Check List: DASHES

HYPHENS
EN DASHES
EM DASHES
▪ Long, hard surgeries
▪ Long and hard surgeries
▪ Small lanky cat