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Writing Skills: Revision 848 Views
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Description:
The process of revision involves editing, proofreading, writing multiple drafts, evaluating your evidence, clarifying your main point, and admitting to yourself that your first attempts are not always perfection. It's okay. Even Twain screwed up once in a while.
Transcript
- 00:02
Revision......[mumbles]
- 00:22
It's hard out here for a pen these days all our jobs have been taken by dirty stinking computers those [Pen complaining about lack of jobs]
- 00:29
show-offs with their spellcheck and their copy and paste huh we used to be
- 00:35
kings I tell you if you ever had to revise something you'd have to turn to
- 00:40
us revision is when you take a piece of writing mess around with it and then
Full Transcript
- 00:44
magically transform it into something better so basically like an ambush [Woman having her hair done]
- 00:49
makeover I guess your first shot at writing a paper is known as a first
- 00:53
draft but no one bats a thousand heck if you hit it out of the park half of the
- 00:58
time you'd be the greatest baseball player ever though you can't turn back
- 01:02
time and take another swing at the ball you can take a second shot at writing an [Girl receives essay back]
- 01:06
essay here's how you do it you take your first draft perform some linguistic
- 01:12
surgery and then produce a second draft which will most definitely be better
- 01:16
than the first if it's still not perfect you repeat the process again for a third [Third draft essay stamped better]
- 01:21
draft or a fourth or in case of my fantasy fanfic The Pens of Mordor a two
- 01:27
hundred and twenty seventh draft the exact number of drafts isn't all that
- 01:30
important though what is important is that revision was the tool you use to [Person picks up revision spanner from toolbox]
- 01:35
create your masterpiece so how exactly do we get our toes wet with revision
- 01:41
before editing something it's helpful to wait a couple of days so you can look at
- 01:45
the piece with fresh eyes revision is like running into your ex at a coffee [Man and girl grab same cup of coffee]
- 01:50
shop things can get weird if you haven't taken enough space basically taking some
- 01:55
space between writing and revising allows you to look at the piece as if
- 01:59
you were a random reader looking at it for the first time now that you've taken
- 02:03
a break it's time to kick it into action your first step is to find your main [Woman in a swimming pool and dives in]
- 02:08
point which if you're looking to score brownie
- 02:11
points with your lit teacher is also known as a thesis so your main point
- 02:16
could be that literature is an important subject to study or on the contrary that
- 02:21
literature is the worst subject ever really a main point can be anything as
- 02:25
long as it's an argument you can even argue that Chris Hemsworth is the most [Photographer snaps Chris Hemsworth]
- 02:29
beautiful man of all time if you felt like it
- 02:31
well you might already have a precise idea of your main point before you start
- 02:36
for many people it doesn't come into clear focus until after they've started
- 02:40
writing or even revising for example you might know from the get-go that you're [Woman thinking of a whale]
- 02:45
writing a paper about killer whales but still be unsure about your specific main
- 02:49
point there are tons of options you could write about the way that killer
- 02:53
whales evolved over time or you could write about their high level of
- 02:57
intelligence or you could even discuss their mating habits if you want to go
- 03:01
there so as long as you look at your first draft pay attention to which parts [Girl assessing her first draft]
- 03:06
pop out the most which ones have the most compelling evidence as in
- 03:10
interesting citations from reliable sources like a chapter from a killer
- 03:14
whales biography if it existed and of course which parts of your papers
- 03:18
stimulate the most muscle growth second you want to identify your readers and [Man exercising in a gym]
- 03:23
your purpose many people don't think about their audience when writing but
- 03:27
it's one of the most important things you can do for example if you were
- 03:31
writing that paper on killer whales mating habits you'd write completely [Woman discussing essay on stage]
- 03:35
different if it was for an audience of professional scientists you'd use a lot
- 03:39
of high-end scientific lingo right if you were writing for elementary school
- 03:43
students on the other hand you'd keep the language much simpler and easy to
- 03:47
digest and if you were writing for a bunch of preteens well you might just
- 03:51
want to stick with emojis in each instance you'd use totally different
- 03:54
language to talk about the exact same subject matter related to this is the
- 03:58
purpose of your paper don't get purpose confused with main idea however also [Main idea and purpose sticky notes appear]
- 04:03
don't get it confused with porpoise which is a completely different animal
- 04:07
your purpose is what you want to achieve with your writing so with your paper on
- 04:12
killer whales your purpose might be to explain the distribution of their
- 04:16
population advocate for a better environmental policies or
- 04:20
show that killer whale exchange didn't that you're down for the cause despite [Man approaches a killer whale]
- 04:24
having the same idea these three papers would end up totally different based on
- 04:29
their respective purposes the third step in this revision process is to evaluate
- 04:33
your evidence does that citation claiming that killer whales listen to
- 04:38
the weekend while getting down come from a good source or is it coming from [Whales listening to radio]
- 04:42
someone untrustworthy a good source is like a good friend it'll always give you
- 04:47
support when you need it and a bad source well that's like mistaking your
- 04:51
worst enemy for your best friend so how do we know if a source is worthy of [Batman and Joker appear]
- 04:56
inclusion in a paper well first it's got to be true you don't want to find a
- 05:01
source that claims for example that killer whales are a type of bird thanks
- 05:04
a lot Wikipedia or that pencils are anywhere near as effective as pens just
- 05:09
ignorant it also must come from a reliable trustworthy source an
- 05:14
award-winning news publication like the nation, the National Review or NPR
- 05:18
probably trustworthy a conspiracy theory blog hosted by an unemployed dog walker [Woman appears in a small room with a dog]
- 05:23
from Kentucky hmm not so much now being reliable doesn't mean that these sources
- 05:29
are 100% accurate each of them is biased in their own way all reliability means
- 05:35
is that we doubt the source is going to straight-up lie to us you also want to [Man sitting on a couch and thunderstorm strikes]
- 05:39
make sure that your research gets along with the main point and purpose of your
- 05:44
paper which might force you to make some difficult cuts during the revision [Pieces of paper land in the trash]
- 05:47
process for example you might be writing a paper on Abraham Lincoln's rarely
- 05:52
discussed wrestling career which isn't even a joke when you find an amazing
- 05:56
source that describes how Lincoln felt when writing the Gettysburg Address it's
- 06:00
a great source reliable and full of rich detail but there's a problem [Book appears open]
- 06:05
it doesn't have jack to do with Lincoln's career as the Hulk Hogan of
- 06:09
the 1800s so we have to cut it although it's sad to see such an awesome source
- 06:14
fall by the wayside and you'll ultimately have a better paper as a
- 06:17
result on a similar note it's important to only keep what's important to the
- 06:21
overall paper so even if you somehow wrote the best paragraph of all time [Man holding up a essay paper]
- 06:27
so beautiful that it causes anyone who reads it to weep uncontrollably you'd
- 06:31
still have to cut it from your paper if it wasn't integral to the argument being
- 06:35
made I'm not saying it's easy killing off your favorite paragraph is like
- 06:40
picking which one of your children you want to give away next up focus on [Hand points to daughters and son]
- 06:44
cleaning up your language and no I'm not just talking about removing cuss
- 06:48
words now that we've taken care of the big-picture stuff like the main idea and
- 06:53
purpose we can start focusing on the nitty-gritty details, revising sentences
- 06:57
to make them flow better
- 07:06
reorganizing your paragraphs to better deliver
- 07:09
information and making sure that all your transitions are as slick as a stick
- 07:14
of butter after you've tightened up the language
- 07:16
you want to focus on grammar spellcheck is great and all but it's not a silver [Theater production appears as curtains drawn back]
- 07:21
bullet that'll magically make your paper read like Shakespeare so don't just take
- 07:25
GoogleDocs word for it read through your paper one more time making sure that all
- 07:29
your sentences are grammatically correct sweeping the pages for misspellings and
- 07:33
typos and ensuring that the punctuation is as on point as the latest Drake
- 07:39
single feels like you've just run a marathon right well keep hustling [Man running a marathon]
- 07:42
because we're almost to the finish line our last revision step will be to read
- 07:47
through your paper one last time not as a writer but as a reader just like you
- 07:53
took some space between writing and revising you should take a quick [People sitting down watching TV]
- 07:56
breather before looking over the paper one last time this trick will help you
- 08:00
forget that you even wrote the paper helping you to see it as a new reader
- 08:04
might and guess what you're now done with your first round of revision most
- 08:08
essays require more than one draft before they're perfect [Fourth draft stamped perfect]
- 08:12
hey what are you gonna do even the iPhone needed a couple of revisions to
- 08:15
get right so maybe you'll have to repeat this revision process one more time or
- 08:20
two more times or a dozen though you might be getting a bit excessive at that
- 08:24
point if you follow these steps and stay focused we guarantee that you'll end up [Steps for revision list appears]
- 08:29
with a better paper than you ever thought possible another important part
- 08:33
of revision is peer feedback dealing with feedback can be frustrating
- 08:37
since it's easy to interpret constructive criticism as insult
- 08:41
especially when you've just poured your heart and soul into a piece of writing [Person empties trash can onto essay]
- 08:45
but take a second and breathe because feedback can turn out to be quite useful
- 08:50
during the revision process after all we've talked about how important it is
- 08:54
to read your writing as if you were a new reader approaching it for the first
- 08:57
time feedback is great because you can literally see how new readers feel
- 09:01
feedback can be harsh but the harsher the better like an upstart football [Man running with a football]
- 09:06
player you're not going to reach the big leagues without taking a few hits but
- 09:10
take any feedback you get with a grain of salt
- 09:13
sometimes a reader might just be trying to conform your writing to their
- 09:16
personal style at others they might simply hate the subject you're writing
- 09:21
about hence the important of evaluating
- 09:24
feedback you've got to make sure it's quality before putting it into practice [Person drops feedback notes into trash]
- 09:28
for example if someone gives you feedback that they didn't understand the
- 09:31
bit about how killer whales select their mates now it would be helpful feedback
- 09:35
while feedback that killer whales are dumb and you should write about sharks
- 09:38
instead is well not so helpful finally there's the implementation of feedback
- 09:44
when implementing feedback you don't necessarily want to do exactly what your [Pen discussing feedback]
- 09:48
peer suggested you can of course but it's sometimes better to think about the
- 09:53
ideas behind their feedback are they telling you to cut the section on killer
- 09:57
whale anatomy because it's confusing? well you might just need to clarify your
- 10:01
writing are they saying a fictional character should make a different [People watching Joker and Batman on TV]
- 10:04
decision maybe you just need to flesh them out
- 10:05
better in any case the key to using feedback to revise your writing is to
- 10:10
approach the situation with an open mind rather than feeling seething rage [Woman's head opens]
- 10:14
towards anyone who dare insult your masterpiece not that I've ever done that
- 10:18
while there are tons of resources for writing assistance the best might be
- 10:24
Purdue University's OWL site which is an acronym for the online Writing Lab not
- 10:29
an all knowledgeable bird..OWL can do it all it can serve as a style guide give
- 10:34
you tips for writing researching and revising your writing and even help you
- 10:39
write resumes and cover letters when applying for jobs so naturally I'd
- 10:42
highly recommend that you bookmark this sucker ASAP oh you can just get the [Woman having address tattooed on forehead]
- 10:46
address tattooed across your forehead that way
- 10:49
you'll always have revision on your mind okay so we've learned that revision is
- 10:55
all about polishing up a paper until it's shining like a gold grill and is in
- 11:00
some ways just as important if not more so than the writing process itself we also
- 11:05
learned that revision should be approached in an organized systematic
- 11:08
manner to create the best draft possible additionally it's important to think
- 11:12
like a reader when revising your work it will help you better understand what the [Woman reading a draft essay]
- 11:16
reader is expecting in our grand finale we learned about the importance of peer
- 11:20
feedback no matter how annoying it can be when it's happening ironic as it
- 11:25
sounds this lesson was so good that I wouldn't revise a thing if I had to do
- 11:30
it again now if you'll excuse me I think I figured out a way to get a job [Pen jumps into an apple]
- 11:34
realistic right?
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