Tag Archives: revision

Revision – the “make it better” exercise

Revision – the “make it better” exercise

Occasionally I offer strategies that you can try to see if they work for you. If they do, and not everything works for everybody, then you can add them to your academic writing repertoire. Today I’ve got an exercise designed to support diagnosis of your own writing weaknesses. In the quiet of your own work […] … learn more→

Revise – by connecting academic reading with academic writing

Revise – by connecting academic reading with academic writing

How do you know what to do when you are revising your writing? Revision always involves making a judgment about your own work. You become a self-evaluator. But what criteria do you use? Art educator and philosopher Elliott Eisner (1976, pp. 140-141) suggested that any evaluation of your own and/or others’ artistic or creative work […] … learn more→

Revision – writing without protection

Revision – writing without protection

Academic writers need to let their readers know that they know what they are talking about. But feeling and talking like an expert is not easy – in fact, it’s often the exact opposite of how you think about yourself. So it’s helpful to be able to pick up the places in your writing where […] … learn more→

The revision cave

The revision cave

Well, my current book is nearly done. But I was wondering, the other day, why writing a book never gets any easier. I’ve written quite a lot of books. This one is actually the twenty fourth, although about eight of them are edited collections. Not the same as a monograph or trade book – although […] … learn more→

Tackling a messy first draft

Tackling a messy first draft

You may have just produced a great wadge of material through free writing. Or perhaps you have a very messy draft of a paper, or a draft thesis chapter. Where to start to try to sort out the useful writing from the rest? What is gold and what is dross? How to get to a […] … learn more→

Revision – it’s not just about cutting words

We’re all told that the essence of revision is rewriting. Write and then write again. Rewrite. And rewriting means cutting, getting rid of the excess verbage we poured onto the page as a ‘brain dump’. We’re also told that the best way to deal with rewriting our crappy first draft is to adopt a ruthless […] … learn more→