Ø 1St Color: Highlight Thesis/Topic Sentences

Self-Editing Tips

 1 st color: highlight thesis/topic sentences

 2 nd color: highlight all quoted/paraphrased evidence

 3 rd color: highlight all of your analysis

 4 th color: highlight all parenthetical citations

Then ask yourself…

1. Do all of my topic sentences make a claim that proves part of my thesis?

2. Is the order laid out in my thesis really the order I follow in my body paragraphs? Do I reverse anything?

3. Are all of my quotations/paraphrases really proving my topic sentence? Is any evidence a little off track or proving a slightly different point?

4. Does every quotation/paraphrase have a citation?

5. Look at the ratio of evidence to analysis. There should be substantially more analysis than evidence. And for each quote/paraphrase, there should be at least the same amount of analysis.

6. Is any of my analysis redundant?

7. Do any of my paragraphs try to prove more than one point?

8. Are any of my paragraphs longer than two pages?

Look at your parenthetical citations…

1. Is the author’s last name is in the citation? If so, double check that you didn’t use it in the lead-in to the quotation. If you did, you can’t use the author’s name in the citation.

2. Is there a page number? If so, double check that there are legitimate page numbers. Almost none of the online sources will have them.

3. Is the title of the article in the citation? If so, is it in quotation marks? If it is abbreviated, does it start with the first word and go at least until it can be distinguished from other similar titles? Is the title in the lead-in? If so, you won’t use it in the citation.

4. Do you have any quotations that are standing alone, not integrated into your own sentences? 5. Are any of your quotations more than four lines long? Then they need to be put in long quotation format!

6. Check the works cited. Is there a corresponding entry for this article?

Checking prose and style… 1. Read your paper aloud. I’m serious. Do it when no one is around or in a closet or something if you are embarrassed. If you trip over phrasing or sentences, that is a pretty good indicator that you need to revise and reword. 2. Do your transitions feel natural and logical or do they feel stilted and abrupt? 3. Did you leave out any words when you were typing? 4. Do you ever start to lose the sense of what a paragraph’s argument is? 5. Do you have a variety of sentence types and lengths? 6. Have you used any words whose definitions or connotations you are not completely sure about? 7. Are you trying to sound “smart” or are you writing for clarity?