Quick Revision

Quick revision, a strategy from Peter Elbow's book Writing With Power, is best used when the results don't matter too much or, as is far too common in college, as a last resort when you have run out of time before a deadline. For quick revision to be really effective, it's best if you have a lot of written material to begin with since quick revision is mostly about cutting. If you are worried about making a paper length requirement, try another revision strategy first.

Quick revision is fairly simple, but it requires ruthlessness and a willingness to look at the paper with a detached mind set.

1. The first step is to think about the audience for this paper and its purpose. Everything that you keep must be directed towards your audience and what you need to support your arguments.
2. While keeping your purpose and audience in mind, go through your paper and mark all of the good pieces. What you mark may be as small as a sentence or a big as a paragraph.
3. The next step is to figure out the main point and arrange your best pieces in and order that fits. Some people use scissors and glue and literally cut their draft apart. Others go the more technological route and use the word processor to copy and paste bits from the old draft into a new file and then arrange the pieces. If it helps, you can also try to use an outline, formal or informal, to organize the information.
4. Write out your almost final draft, except for the introduction and conclusion, which will be saved for last. By the time you have bridged or written transitions between all of your pieces and the concluding paragraph, you should have a pretty clear idea of your main idea or thesis statement.
5. Write your introduction and concluding paragraphs. Some writers prefer to write the conclusion first and then go back and write out the introduction. In either case, at this point you should know enough for both paragraphs: your main point or thesis, the points you used to support it , and the conclusions you reached.
6. The last step before editing is to read your paper out loud. Reading your paper out loud is a good idea with any revision strategy, but it is especially important with quick revision since you probably don't have time to get a second opinion or to put you paper away for a few days to look at it with fresh eyes. Reading your paper out loud will help you to hear the places where your writing gets confusing or awkward. It may even help you fix those spots as you speak your way into the correct word or phrase.
7. Finally, edit your paper for grammar, spelling, and punctuation.