Revising Tips

Revising Tips for Literary Analysis Assignments

Throughout the semester, we have “studied a selection of literary works of different genres” (poetry, drama, short fiction, novel, etc.) and for each major genre introduced you have “received instruction in the literary terminology/vocabulary necessary for an informed discussion of literary features of texts”.

Your performance on various quizzes and short written assignments demonstrate that you have “developed some basic, analytical reading and writing skills relevant to the study of literature in general”. Moreover, from the caliber of your small group and our full-class discussions, it’s clear to me that you have “become more comfortable with and adept at reading, analyzing, and thinking about literature” over the course of the semester.

I have designed this “tip sheet” to help you further refine your critical thinking and persuasive writing skills – particularly for short written assignments where you analyze literature. (In our class, these include short essays, informal journal entries, etc.). Even though these tips are targeted to literary analysis writing assignments, some of them may prove useful for other courses that require critical thinking and persuasive writing skills.

Proofreading, Editing and Revision Tips

In general, writing assignments require three stages of student work:

I. Pre-Writing (gathering notes, jotting down ideas, making an outline, etc.)

II. Drafting (writing out your main points in sentence and paragraph form).

III. Editing (print out draft and review your writing in 3 stages):

1. Proofreading/marking BASIC ERRORS (grammar, spelling, wrong words, etc.)

2. Editing for ORGANIZATION and LITERARY ANALYSIS ELEMENTS (quotes/specific textual examples, explanation of your ideas and interpretations)

3. Revising for CLARITY and STYLE

IV. Make changes*

* Then, of course, go back to your saved draft & make the changes accomplished on paper in the document (RE-SPELL CHECK new changes and SAVE/Print/Upload, etc.)

***Don’t skip the crucial 3-part editing phase and lose credibility for your otherwise great ideas in the paper!***

Here are a few things to consider as you edit and revise draft material. (I recommend that you print out your complete rough draft to do these edits.):

1. Proofread carefully so that your writing is clear and free of significant grammatical errors.

· One of the best ways to do this is to read the entire essay or journal entry aloud—slowly—to catch grammatical mistakes; then make corrections as you go.

A few common grammatical issues to look for and fix, if needed:

· Subject-verb agreement – Subject and verb should match: plural-plural (“they go”),

singular-singular (he goes).

· Verb tense agreement – Verbs in the same sentence/paragraph should be in the same tense

(all past tense or all present tense)

· Run on sentences – Unnecessarily long sentences are hard to understand. Split these up

with a semi-colon or a period.

Be sure to adjust pronoun references to the author, so that your pronoun reflects the correct gender.

· In 20th C. American Women Writers, ALL of the authors should be referred to as “she” not “he”.

2. Editing for Organization / Literary Analysis

· Double check each allusion or reference you mention (for example ‘Meinkampf’ in “Daddy”, etc.).

· It’s possible to look these up, so while in a freewrite or very rough draft you might just be speculating, there’s no reason not to confirm specific meanings whenever possible. It will strengthen your overall analysis.

· Each time you make a claim about what something means (interpretation), back it up with a quote (or quotes) or specific example(s) from the text as evidence (textual support) and explain why you think that example means something (argument).

INTERPRETATION = TEXTUAL SUPPORT + ARGUMENT

(Claim about Meaning) (Quote(s) or Specific Examples) (Explanation of “why”)

3. Revising for Clarity and Style (Fine tuning )

· For any kind of writing– but especially literary analysis — it is important to be as CLEAR AS POSSIBLE about WHO IS DOING WHAT to WHOM. There are 2 major tips for improving this:

1. Whenever possible, replace a PRONOUN (he, she, it, they,) with a NOUN (person, place or thing) or PROPER NOUN (specific name of person or city, etc.).

[Same thing goes for POSESSIVE PRONOUNS (his, her, their, its’).] EASIEST WAY TO DO THIS: Wherever you have a vague pronoun or possessive pronoun ask yourself a short question to get at specifics. Then use the “answer” in your revision:

Example from student draft of Journal 1:

Question: “Who is ‘she’ (PRONOUN) in this sentence? Answers: “the poet” (NOUN), “Sylvia Plath” (PROPER NOUN, or “Plath” (PROPER NOUN).)

Look how much stronger these two sentences become when I replace the vague PRONOUNS with NOUNs or PROPER NOUNS:

DRAFT: “Daddy was written to create an image of the relationship between her and her

father. Her father died while she was 8 years old therefore she had a brief relationship.” REVISED: “‘Daddy’ was written to create an image of the relationship between Sylvia Plath and her father. Plath’s father died while she was only 8 years old; therefore the poet had a brief relationship with him.”

2. Whenever possible, revise sentences to use ACTIVE VERBS instead of PASSIVE VERBS. EASIEST WAY TO DO THIS: When you rewrite sentences, put the SUBJECT (whoever DID or IS DOING the action) in front of THE VERB (what is BEING DONE.).

DRAFT: “The poem is written in a nursery rhyme so it shows how it makes her feel like a little girl again.”

The sentence above is not clear about what “it” is (the poem? the nursery rhyme style?). Or maybe the two “its” refer to two different things? Also it is not clear WHO or WHAT the subject is, WHAT the action (verb) is or what the DIRECT OBJECT is.

REVISED (for PRONOUNS & ACTIVE VERBS): Sylvia Plath wrote “Daddy” in the style of a

nursery rhyme. By writing in this nursery rhyme style, Plath demonstrates for readers how

thinking about her father makes the poet feel like a little girl again.