Hi, I'm Rebecca Balcarcel, and I can help you revise your essay. First of all, congratulations.
If you're already thinking about revising, then you already wrote the essay. Hooray!
So you're not procrastinating, at least not completely.
Alright, so how do you revise your essay? First of all, look at your format. Every college
essay, especially, needs to be in a particular format. So
you can't just throw the text on the page single-spaced if the format requires double-spacing.
MLA, for example (Modern Language Association)... They require double spacing, they require
a header that's got your name and the teachers
name and the date and the class. They require page numbers, but not just numbers, numbers
with your name next to it. Different kinds of formats
require different particular ways of writing out your text. Make sure you're following
those. No reason to lose points on something as simple as formatting. Moving on: Look at
your title. Is your title something like Assignment 1
or Essay 2? Rewrite that to be a creative, interesting, engaging title. Number three:
Do you have a thesis in this essay? That means, do you have a
sentence that sums up the point that you're trying to make? You need a specific thesis
that makes an assertion that shows some deep thinking on your part. So a strong thesis
is going to try to tell how or why. If you have a thesis that
simply says what something is, for example, "so and so is the main character of such and
such movie," that's not analytical, it's not deep enough,
it's not thoughtful enough. You need a thesis that delves deep into the subject matter and
asserts an interpretation, or asserts a position that you're taking. It needs to be clear.
So it needs to be detailed, it needs to be clear, it needs
to be deep, assertive. This is what the whole rest of the essay should prove. The next tip
I have for you is, does every paragraph support that
thesis? By support, I just mean, does every paragraph provide some evidence that that
thesis must be reasonable, must be true, you know, has to be a logical position to take?
So check each of your body paragraphs. If some of them don't
make a point all by themselves, consider combining them so you have one point made in each paragraph.
There should be one piece of evidence per paragraph. If you're quoting, you might think
in terms of one quote per paragraph, although that's not always going to be the right thing
to do. If you have several quotes that all support one
point, then they should go together in a paragraph and just be a beefy paragraph. Now, if you're
writing about literature, or about a film, then you'll need quotes from the film, or
from the poem or the story, to be your evidence. You
should, again, have a major quote per paragraph. Each paragraph should make a point, and that
point should explain how the thesis makes sense. So the
thesis governs everything. About those quotes: For a strong essay, you need to make sure
that your quotes are not just dropped in there. That means that none of your quotes should
just be standing alone. They all need to have a little
on-ramp, and your on-ramp is, mentioning who the quote is by or what work this quote is
from. A signal phrase is sometimes a English teacher word
for it. You have a phrase like, "According to Johnson," open quote, and then whatever
Johnson said. So you need a little phrase like that to be the on-ramp for your quote,
and you may even need an off-ramp for your quote, depending, to
explain what your quote's significance really is. So the quote needs to prove something.
It's there for a reason, and you need to make readers very aware
of exactly what that reason is. So in the sentence right before the quote, sentence
right after the quote, or perhaps the sentence that includes the quote, tell the reader what
the quote means. What is the significance of this quote? What
does it prove? What does it explain? Don't let the reader just figure it out. Say it.
Say it clearly. Just come out and say it. So the quote won't
just be dropped in. It'll have a little on-ramp, even an off-ramp. The next thing you need
to think about is your conclusion. Your conclusion should not, absolutely not, just rephrase
your thesis. Especially it should not retype your thesis
verbatim. You need to say this all in completely different words. Draw more or less the same
conclusion, but not worded really the same at all. So to
be sophisticated, you know, write your conclusion as if it is summing up the point. It's not
going to bring in new evidence or new perspectives. It needs to just sum up what you've said,
and restate your main point without using the
exact language that your thesis statement uses. Alright, so that'll make a strong conclusion.
Now, you're also going to think about your content. Mostly
I've been talking here about your structure. So let's move on to content. Your content
I can't help you with as much, because I don't know what your paper is about, but make sure
that your content goes deep enough. For a successful
essay, you need to have some ideas of your own in there, and if you don't have any ideas
of your own then you run the risk of writing a shallow paper
that's more of a report and doesn't do enough analyzing or enough interpreting of your own.
So only you know whether your paper has got that really good content. But if you feel
like your paper's kind of thin, then revision is the
time to add something to it, to think a little deeper, and, you know, make sure you have
a meaty paper that really says something, and says something
of your own.
Okay, now let's talk about sentence structure. You've got... Let's say you've got great content,
and you've done everything I mentioned before, but now what about on the sentence
level and on the word level? First of all, you're going
to need your wording to be in a professional tone. You can't have slang, and you can't
have a lot of contractions. Instead of "can't" go ahead and
write out "cannot," if this is an academic essay for school, and especially for college.
Go ahead and write out those contractions. Make sure you don't have some silly mistakes
like "there" vs. "their."
Also, choose strong verbs. You need to look at all your verbs, and if possible, instead of saying,
"Johnson says," let's try "states," or "proves something something by saying blah blah."
Have some variety and stay professional. You want strong
verbs, you want specific nouns, you want to vary your sentence structure. That means you
want some short sentences, some long. You want to stay
rational-sounding. You don't want to rant. You can be energetic or passionate, but you
can't bash other points of view. You have to be respectful to all sides. That's the
tone of academic writing. If you were on a radio-show that
would not be the tone, and it would be perfectly fine to rant. But this is not that occasion.
In this occasion you need to have a professional tone.
All your language should be respectful and accurate. You can't fudge the truth. You have
to stay, you know, factual. And make sure that you're conveying a voice with your wording.
You want to project a voice of someone who is rational,
and intelligent, and well-informed, and who has opinions and reasons that follow from
all of that good thinking that you've done. So that's the voice
you want to project. Okay, so, that should help you revise any college essay. If you
have specific questions, go ahead and leave them in the comments, and I'll try to answer
them eventually. Good luck with your essay.