{"id":24645,"date":"2015-06-12T12:52:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T17:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=24645"},"modified":"2015-06-13T16:32:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T21:32:10","slug":"the-necessity-of-revising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2015\/06\/the-necessity-of-revising\/","title":{"rendered":"The Necessity of Revising"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"keep-calm-and-revise-11\"<\/a>I had a student a couple of years ago who described herself as a \u201cone-sit wonder.\u201d That is, in all of her previous schooling, she was quite adept at pounding out a more than serviceable paper in one sitting. Once she arrived in law school, she realized that style of writing was probably not going to work. (And, to be fair, it probably shouldn\u2019t work in any other setting, either, but I do realize that it\u2019s the way most students do write.)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s rarely anyone who can pound out what should be considered \u201cfinal copy\u201d in one sitting. Really good writers realize that writing is a process; the point of that first draft is to give you something to revise. In the writing process, you should be leaving behind a trail of drafts, some of them quite rough, before you finally arrive at the polished final copy.<\/p>\n

Why is it important\u2014no, necessary\u2014to revise? Because most of the time writing and thinking go hand in hand; your writing in the early phases is often just a way for you to work out your thinking on a topic. And our early thinking on an issue often results in us fumbling for the best words and the clearest way to say what we want to say. If we stopped after that first attempt, we\u2019re likely to end up with imprecise and convoluted writing that will more than likely frustrate a reader.<\/p>\n

A reader will be frustrated by the little missteps that make her reading more difficult\u2014the typos, grammar and punctuation errors, formatting issues, all of which cause her mind to work on processing the writing, but for which she receives no benefit, no useful information. A reader will also be frustrated by writing that rambles. When writing rambles, there\u2019s often too much information thrown together with too little organization or connection. Revising can reduce or eliminate both of those kinds of frustrations.<\/p>\n

How do you revise? There are as many ways as there are writers, but here are six steps to get you started.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Have something written.<\/strong> Again, the idea here is to produce a first draft that gets your thoughts down on paper. Try to keep your ideas moving, even if they feel like they\u2019re coming out inelegantly. Consider your writing fluid; nothing you write now is set in stone. You can, and will, change it.<\/li>\n
  2. Save each draft.<\/strong> As you revise, save each draft, dated and numbered sequentially, either in hard or electronic copy. Why? Because at some point in the revising process, you might discover that the phrasing or the word you really want was something you cut out two drafts ago. If you have each draft, you can easily retrieve those words. As well, by saving drafts you have a record of where you started and how your thinking evolved. This \u201crecord\u201d may come in handy if at some point someone challenges you on a part of your final copy. You can go back to those previous drafts to explain (and show) how and why the language changed. (Especially useful if you are co-authoring a document with someone else.)<\/li>\n
  3. Develop a revision checklist.<\/strong> Generally when you revise, you\u2019ll want to begin with large-scale concerns, such as making sure you\u2019re meeting page or word limits and formatting rules (if any) and checking to make sure that every part of the document you need is there. You\u2019ll want to review the overall large-scale organization, the headings and the subheadings (again, if any). Eventually, you\u2019ll turn your attention to sentences and words, looking for ways to make each sentence more concise and each word precisely chosen. The last step includes proofreading for typos and checking citations. You find my short article on revisions, including a sample revision checklist, here<\/a>. For ways to be more concise, see my short article here<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. Change your view.<\/strong> It\u2019s always easier to revise someone else\u2019s work. You\u2019re not personally invested in it the way you are with your own work. But to make your own work the best it can be, you need to turn that objective and critical eye you use on someone else\u2019s work to your own. As you read your work, try to put yourself in the reader\u2019s place. For example, your \u201clogical\u201d progression makes sense to you, the writer, but imagine yourself as a reader. The reader doesn\u2019t have the benefit of your thoughts, so his understanding of your message is based solely on what he reads. Would he find your organization logical?<\/li>\n
  5. Let it \u201cbake.\u201d<\/strong> Time is always of the essence, but it\u2019s oh-so-important to let your writing \u201cbake.\u201d That is, write your draft and set it aside before you revise it. And after you make those revisions, set it aside again before you revise a second (or third or fourth) time. Giving yourself some time in between writing and revisions allows you to better approach the revision with objective eyes you need.<\/li>\n
  6. Let it go. <\/strong>How many times you should revise usually depends on how much time you have before your deadline. Most often, we are working up to the last minute and can afford only a single revision. Try, though, to get in a second before releasing your work. But after you do release it, take a cue from Frozen\u2019s Elsa and \u201clet it go.\u201d<\/a> Once you\u2019ve turned in a memo or brief, or emailed or mailed a letter, it\u2019s gone. While it\u2019s possible you\u2019ll have an \u201cI should have . . .\u201d moment, there\u2019s no point in letting that moment overwhelm you. There will always be another piece to write, giving you another chance to revise.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    What are your best tips on revising?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I had a student a couple of years ago who described herself as a \u201cone-sit wonder.\u201d That is, in all of her previous schooling, she was quite adept at pounding out a more than serviceable paper in one sitting. Once she arrived in law school, she realized that style of writing was probably not going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-writing","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}