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Saturday, November 21, 2015

Revision Questions for Research Papers

When reviewing the essay draft, make your editorial comments directly on the draft and, in some cases, answer the questions below on the back of the student’s essay. Once you have completed these steps, which should take about 20 minutes, discuss your remarks with the writer.


1. Is the essay title sufficiently focused? If not, offer a suggested title.
2. Does the first paragraph clearly introduce the subject under consideration? Is the theme of the work presented? Are there words (or sentences) in the first paragraph that can be removed (or edited) in order to make the introduction more concise and clear?  does the writer offer a surprising statistic, anecdote, illustration, or provocative question?  Should they?

3. What is the essay's thesis? Is it specific enough for the length of the essay? Where does it appear in the essay? (A thesis is an argument and it is the thread that runs from the beginning to the end of the essay.) Copy what you think the writer’s thesis is on the back of his or her essay.

4. Is the issue under consideration clearly summarized near the beginning of the essay? Should anything be added? On the other hand, is the issue summarized at too great of a length? If either is true, make your suggested revisions directly on the draft.

5. Are quotes from the original work(s) used judiciously? If not, how could they be improved? (Note: no more than 25% of the essay should be comprised of quotations.)

6. What are the best examples in support of the writer's thesis? Can they be more fully developed? How? What other examples could the writer provide?

7. Is there sufficient analysis of the examples? Or does the writer let the examples “speak” for themselves or "prove" the essay's thesis? If this is true, suggest where the writer needs to provide a fuller analysis of the example(s) provided.

8. Is the essay unified? Do paragraph topic sentences connect to the thesis? If not, what are the examples or discussions unrelated to the essay's thesis? If there are sections where the essay lacks focus, suggest an alternative presentation of the thesis and/or the examples so the essay achieves coherence.

9. Is the conclusion earned? Or does it introduce a new topic or idea not relevant to the essay’s thesis?

10. Are rules of citation followed within the essay’s text? If not, mark them for correction by the writer. Do all in-text citations appear on the Works Cited page? Review the sources—whether articles from a newspaper, magazine or scholarly journal, or book—on the Works Cited page. Are all of these sources cited within the essay? Does the Works Cited page follow MLA guidelines?

11. For the writer’s attention, mark errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

4 comments:

  1. Professor McCabe,
    About the advice on writing from Chekhov in the letters.
    Is there a reason for Chekhov to write a letter to specific person? or Did he write letters to advice all the writers in general?

    ps. i send u this question twice to u in email b/c i don't know which way u will get it first. sorry :(
    Thank you
    Kim.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kimberly,
    I did answer your email. Brief answer: Chekhov wrote many, many letters to many different people for different reasons . . . . I can't say much more than that.
    --Christopher McCabe

    ReplyDelete
  3. hi there,
    i found this video interesting, and thought to share it with you, english with mccabe ppl...
    good luck on your paper ;)
    mike B. ENG 1A

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVvKnq5XT-g&feature=player_embedded#at=46

    ReplyDelete