Essay editing
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010Essay editing: Editing your own writing
Many times the first essay draft has to serve as the final draft: when writing an exam, appearing in a scholarship essay contest or writing an essay impromptu in a classroom. There are also times when you can avail for the essay editing services or have the opportunity to make extensive revisions to your essays. In both cases, you must be familiar with essay editing techniques: you’ll have to edit your exam essay on your own or check the one you got edited from an essay editing service to ensure the quality of the work.
Here’s a checklist of questions to ask yourself when editing an essay or any other written assignment.
1/. What is the kind of essay you are reading?
– Narrative essay, argumentative essay, cause and effect essay or instructional essay? The style and content of the essay would easily supply the information. If not, make necessary changes to the essay.
2/. What is the purpose of the essay?
The genre of the essay chosen by the essay writer should explain the purpose of the essay. An argumentative essay should fulfil the purpose of arguing a point of view while a narrative essay should aim to narrate an event and not become didactic like instructional essays. Make the purpose clear in the essay when editing it.
3/. Does the essay answer the essay question?
Essays generally begin addressing the essay question but lose track as they progress. Essay editing should be done to ensure that all the arguments lead to the common aim of supporting the thesis statement.
4/. Is the essay structure apropos to the content and style of the essay?
A 250 word essay written focusing on only one aspect can be best written in a three paragraph essay format while an essay that takes into account all the features should follow the five the paragraph essay format.
5/. Does the essay have clarity and balance:
make sure that the argumentative essay gives a balanced approach by providing counter arguments. All the similar arguments must be organised as a constructive whole.
6/. Are there any grammatical, syntactical or stylistic errors?
Essay editing should be done to ensure there are no grammatical errors in the document. Also look for the word usage and other stylistic errors.
7/. Does the essay follow the academic writing format?
If you are writing an academic essay that involves research, you must make sure that you have followed the academic formats suited to your field and subject. Whether you are following the APA style or wriring the MLA style essay, the essay should be consistent in the usage.
8/. Are all the quotations properly cited?
Using quotations without proper citation can lead to cases of plagiarism. All the acquired material must be properly cited and quoted.
9/. Do the entries in the essay tally with the works cited?
If you are expected to provide a list of works cited at the end of the essay, you must tally the entries against the ones used in the essay.
10/. Is the essay presentable and reader friendly?
Use of signposts, proper formatting must be taken note of while essay editing.
