If you're a writer, you have probably heard the phrase, "writing is revision" at least once in your life, and the fact of the matter is that the statement is essentially true. While the first draft of any work is the product of a writer's first thoughts and instincts, and will contain some of the piece's best material, it often takes a lot polish to turn it into a completed draft.
There are countless ways to revise a piece of writing, but the following three steps are some of the most effective for picking out even the most easily overlooked errors (and the ones your spell check won't even catch!).
Step 1: Read Your Work Aloud
Once you have completed a draft, read it aloud to yourself. Make sure that you project your voice at a normal volume - don't mumble and skim! Respect the punctuation that is already written into the piece, and pay close attention to the points at which you naturally pause - this can be an excellent way to catch missing commas and semi-colons. Reading aloud will also help you to sort out any awkward wording, and will clue you in to run-on sentences.
Step 2: Read Your Work Aloud...Backwards
After you have corrected the mistakes revealed by reading your paper aloud once, read it again, but this time, start at the end. 'Backwards' means not only beginning from the end of the work, but also reading each word of each sentence in the reverse order that they were written.
It may seem like an odd thing to do, but reading your paper backwards forces you to (a) take things slowly, and (b) look at each and every single word on the paper in front of you. Once again, this is a very effective way of correcting sentence structure and improving word choice. As you read, you will also notice every once of those easy-to-make typos, such as 'if' instead of 'is'. You have now become your own, more efficient, spell checker!
Step 3: Get a Second Set of Eyes (and a Third, and a Fourth)
It is always helpful to have another, non-biased, non-exhausted set of eyes to read your work. If you are writing an academic piece, this is a great way to find out whether your thesis and explanations are clear and concise; if it a creative piece, you can test out whether your work has its intended effect. Having someone else read your work can also help you to expand it, as your reader will most likely have questions about the subject matter, or a desire to know more.
Finished revising and concerned with the technicalities of writing? You are in luck! Scholars like Diana Hacker have published thorough, user-friendly writing handbooks, available to anyone and everyone on the Internet.
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