The difference between rewriting and editing

While it can be tempting to confuse the two, the processes of rewriting and editing are different and best exercised separately to help strengthen the text. These are some key distinctions to keep in mind:

Editing

• Deals exclusively with grammar, spelling, punctuation
• Is hierarchical. Errors are fixed and submitted for a grade
• Key structural points such as a thesis statement, transitions, introduction and conclusion are evaluated

Revising

• Clarify points, expand arguments and explain evidence. Ideas are more detailed, paragraphs deleted and/or shifted. Vague text is more clearly defined.
• Offer discussion and arguments between the writer and reader
• Strengthen voice and create space for valid and separate opinions

Starting the rewriting process

Rewriting can be a long, tedious process, but by organizing your thoughts and time you can move through it efficiently and effectively. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Writing Center offers several useful points in “Revising Drafts.” Some of the tips include:

• Wait a bit after finishing your first draft. That could mean a few hours, a few days, or even a few weeks before starting the rewriting so that you can look at your work with a fresh perspective.
• Think big. Before you dig into the nitty gritty grammatical details, look at the overarching concepts in the paper
• Be honest with yourself. Do you still agree with your thesis? If not, don’t be afraid to jump in and rework your argument.
• Ask yourself if you’re staying on track. Now’s the time to double check that you’re sticking to the assignment and addressing all of the crucial questions and points outlined by your professor.

Don’t get too attached

Maybe you’ve poured your heart and soul into the first draft of a paper. You’ve done your research and made a passionate argument on a topic you believe in. Now that it’s all down on paper, the rewriting must begin. Only you don’t want to change anything. We’ve all been there. That crossroads where the real criticism begins and its you vs., well, you. To put it bluntly, get over yourself! As myriads of writers such as Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Orwell, and Faulkner have attested to, getting too attached to your first draft is a dangerous place to be. Ed Rodley, in his October 2, 2011 post, “‘Murder your darlings,’ and the importance of rewriting,” to his blog, Thing about museums, wrote about how he became too attached to his ideas, which in turn, caused his proposal to suffer.

“(It’s) not that you must not write things you like or love, but that you must be extra suspicious of them and be willing to expunge them when they don’t serve the purpose of the text,” Rodley wrote. “This is why God created editors and first readers.  When you love a piece of writing, it’s hard to be critical of it. Grant proposals, with their straightjacket page limits and rigid format, are no place for deathless prose for the sake of deathless prose.”

Find a mentor

For those who are working on rewriting a research paper, or working toward an advanced degree in research, one of your best resources is a mentor. Finding a professor or guide to walk through the fire with you can be invaluable in evaluating your work. Lourdes S. Bautista, Professor Emeritus of English and Applied Linguistics at De La Salle University in Manila, concurred in her December 17, 2006 article, “Advice to young researchers: getting started,” in the Manila Bulletin, that having a mentor not only helped her academic writing, but her academic career as a whole.

“(My mentor) would send notes to junior faculty members suggesting research topics; he would write extensive notes on the drafts of thesis chapters submitted to him; he would impatiently inquire about progress in the writing of one’s dissertation,” Bautista wrote. “He would forward flyers about national or international conferences and invite the recipients to submit abstracts; he would read articles written by faculty members and recommend further studies.”

What advice has helped you in the rewriting process? Please share your comments below.

For more information on research, writing and rewriting visit Questia’s topic page on Education.

Sometimes when writing, we may begin a sentence without knowing how it will end. If you’re not careful, it could come out with the entirely wrong meaning. Self-editing prior to handing in work can help avoid some serious writing disasters.

“When something is awful, why not say so?” asks Richard Palmer, author of Write In Style: A Guide to Good English(London: Spon Press, 1993, 3).  He says so in the chapter on Disasters, – using the following passages to explain what to do to avoid such mistakes:

1.) In this set of instructions the writer gets into a hilarious mess through not thinking clearly or ‘hearing’ the words.

“When feeding the baby with a bottle, it must be held at a steep angle with the bottom tilted up and the neck held firmly down, otherwise an air-bubble will form in the neck. Do not allow the baby to drink all the feed at once, but give it a rest sometimes so that it can get the wind up. Finally, when the baby has finished the bottle, place it under the tap straight away, or allow it to soak in a mild solution of Milton, to prevent infection. If the baby does not thrive on fresh milk it should be powdered or boiled.”

A formal analysis of why this goes wrong would show that the loose use of pronouns sets up a farcical ambiguity. But a simpler explanation is that the writer is lazy. There has been no attempt to imagine how the words will ‘sound’, how they will affect the reader. Given that the passage is instructional, presumably intended to assist an inexperienced parent, that is a severe fault.

2.) The next extract, taken from an A-level English examination script, suffers from inadequate thought too, though in a different way.

“Fielding, having once been a play write [sic] *, moved into novels. In this novel he was not merely trying to parody Pamela, by Richardson, but his was make [sic] some clear social comments. To do this he had to use caricatures and situations, and this obviously could lead to a certain amount of disconnection of events.”

Even if we ignore the spelling mistake and the brief dive into illiteracy in the third line, this is an unholy mess. The candidate is not stupid, and underneath the drivel there is a sense of some useful points trying to emerge. But they are all jumbled together, linked by a ‘logic’ presumed to be adequate but which in fact is non-existent.

The writer needed to be aware of a very valuable principle. Never begin a sentence until you are sure of what you want to say in it and of how it will end.

If obeying that principle means that you write shorter sentences for a while, never mind. Better that than to land yourself in the kind of quagmire we’ve just waded through.

Click here for additional examples of writing gone wrong and what you can do to avert them.

Here are Dr. Dave’s recommendations for keeping your writing simple:

Pick one topic, one argument, that is finite, limited, and can be defined. Do not try to explain everything; it can’t be done. Even if you think you know everything, avoid the temptation to put it all in every paper. We college professors do not simply skim the page searching for the magic words that get awarded “points,” which we then add up to determine the grade. We actually want a coherent essay, not a bushel of babble. Narrow in on a specific question or problem or character. Pick a word, a phrase, an image, or an event. Ask a specific question: “Why does the author use this particular word or image in this paragraph?” Why did the Americans in Texas declare their independence in 1836 instead of 1835?” “Why does Jesse Jackson prefer the term ‘African American’ to ‘Afro-American’ or ‘black’?”

Your analysis of that specific question can then widen to include the larger problems of the text, or of life. Begin with your specific fact or quote or problem and then expand to the larger contexts, first of the work under consideration, then of the author and his or her world, and then, if you are feeling ambitious, of the cosmic whole. But do not leave us floating in outer space. Keep the original rock from which you started in sight and be sure to return to it at the end.

When you do not have to answer the question of what the entire text is all about, the problem of choosing a topic is considerably simplified. You do not have to “understand Faulkner” or “the causes of the Great Depression” or “the meaning of existence” in order to write a sophomore paper. Begin with whatever interests you, even if it is only a single person or phrase or event.

Dr. Dave provides additional insights on this topic in the chapter “Choosing a Topic and Telling Your Story.“