A STUDENT stands in the kitchen working on an essay on a tablet.
STUDENT: Okay, my argument’s drafted. Now time for the next steps, revising and editing. This is when you look at the essay to make sure you’ve included everything you want, and it’s written in a well-organized way.
STUDENT: First, I’ll look at the introduction. Did I state my claims clearly and introduce the reasons I’ll be discussing in my essay? In this paper, my claim was that all children should learn a second language. And I give my reasons: it makes children smarter, it helps them become more aware of other cultures, and it gives them more opportunities as adults. Sounds like an introduction was sound!
STUDENT: Next, I’ll look at the body, everything between the introduction and the conclusion. Here’s what I’ll look at, are my ideas organized clearly and logically? Are my reasons logical? Are my reasons supported by evidence from credible sources? Are the relationships between my ideas clear? Let’s take a couple of examples of ways I could revise my argument. First, I realized that I argued that learning a second language makes children smarter, but I didn’t include a lot of hard evidence. I’ll add this statement from a study that says that children who speak a second language usually perform better on standardized tests in math and English. Later on, I found that I have a really long paragraph that argues that learning a second language helps children in other ways, by teaching them about different cultures and giving them a better career. But these two are really different reasons, so I broke it up into two different paragraphs.
STUDENT: I made a bunch of other revisions. And then I created a second draft, and read it over again. This time, I was editing. Here’s what I looked for, are the sentences written in a way that gets my ideas across clearly? Did I use the best word choice to express my ideas? Are all the words spelled correctly? Are there any grammar errors? Are there any errors in my punctuation or capitalization? When I did my editing, I found a bunch of things to change. In paragraph one, I used great four times. I replaced it a couple of places with words like ideal or effective, which are more specific. Checking my spelling, I realized I misspelled experience, so I fixed that. In the grammar department, I found this sentence.
The STUDENT reads aloud from the tablet, and the sentence appears as a graphic on screen.
STUDENT: Children who learn a foreign language can understand another person’s perspective, this was found in a study. There were a few problems here. First, the sentence makes it sound like children who don’t learn a foreign language aren’t going to understand another person’s perspective. I want to say that children who study a language are better at understanding another person’s perspective, so I’ll change can understand to, are better able to understand. Next, I see I’m missing an apostrophe for person’s. It’s a singular noun, so I’ll place it before the S. Finally, I see that this is a run-on sentence. There are two independent clauses, one before the comma and one after. I can fix this by changing the last clause to a phrase, as one study found. Here’s what I ended up with.
The STUDENT reads aloud from the tablet, and the new sentence appears as a graphic on screen.
STUDENT: Children who learn a foreign language are better able to understand another person’s perspective, as one study found. I made a lot of other changes, too. I’m sure you’ll find things to tweak in your argument once you look at it with an editor’s eye!
Fade to black and a copyright notice appears on screen, which reads:
Copyright 2020 Pearson Online and Blended Learning K–12 USA. All rights reserved.
THE END.
Copyright 2020 Pearson Online & Blended Learning K–12 USA. All rights reserved. Write down anything important to remember as you revise and edit your argument of essay
1. Make sure to clearly state your claims and introduce the reasons you will be discussing in your essay.
2. Organize your ideas in a clear and logical manner.
3. Use evidence from credible sources to support your reasons.
4. Ensure that the relationships between your ideas are clear.
5. Look for opportunities to revise and strengthen your argument by adding more specific evidence or breaking up paragraphs with different reasons.
6. When editing, focus on clarity of sentence structure and word choice.
7. Check for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization errors.
8. Double-check that your sentences convey your ideas accurately.
9. Be mindful of run-on sentences and make appropriate changes to clarify meaning.
10. Continuously review and make changes as necessary to improve your argument.