Learn to Write

Looking at your work as a whole and looking for ways to clarify and improve your body text and organization

Making the changes necessary to clarify and strengthen your writing

Looking at individual pieces of your work (sentence by sentence) and searching for specific errors

The stage where you look at the way in which your writing is organized and laid out to see whether it flows in a clear and logical manner

The stage where you make a second (or third, or fourth) draft of what you want to hand in with the goal of creating the best product possible

The stage where you look for spelling and grammar errors, missing in-text citations, and sentence clarity

Questions to ask at this stage include:

• Did I provide enough information to prove my thesis true or false?
• Did I complete the task that my instructor was asking for?
• Do I have a clear side/perspective/opinion?
• Do all of the ideas I have mentioned in my body text have a piece of evidence to back it up (from one of my information sources)?
• Does each paragraph talk about a single idea or are there multiple ideas contained within each paragraph?

Questions to ask at this stage include:

• How many times have I read through my work so far? Is it enough? Do I need to read it again?

• Is there a friend or classmate who could give me feedback to improve the next draft?

• How much time do I have and how much time do I need to create the best work possible?

• Is my language appropriate? Am I using terms and definitions correctly?

• Am I making things more complicated or wordier than they need to be?

• Does this writing sound like me?

Questions to ask at this stage include:

• Which sentences need in-text citations?

• Did I spell that right?

• Am I missing a punctuation mark?

• Am I missing words in my sentences?

• Could I use a different verb to elevate my writing?

• Could this sentence be shorter and/or more concisely written?