SPARK: Student Papers and Academic Research Kit: Thinking Like a Reader

The most obvious occasion for revision comes with the completion of the first draft of an essay. An excellent way to re-see your draft is to imagine how it will look from the perspective of a reader.

Before reviewing your draft take some time to consider:

• Why might your reader be interested in your essay, or what might attract your reader’s interest?
• What do you need to tell your reader in order for them to be able to understand your ideas, and what can you assume is already known and does not need to be said?
• What type of evidence is your reader likely to find most and least compelling?

Next... Take a Break

In order to truly re-see your draft from the point of view of your reader, it is very useful to put it aside for a while before rereading it, preferably for at least a day.

If you can, try to plan to have your draft finished so that you will have enough time to take a break between drafts. If you don't have a day, try to take some time away from your work completely (take a walk, play some video games, go to the mall, whatever) to clear your head. Taking a break can help you:

• Gain a fresh perspective: During a break from writing you will engage in many other activities that will take your mind away from the details on which you were focused. As a result you will come back to the essay in a state more like that of those who will eventually read your essay.
• Recognize gaps: While deeply engaged in the writing process, writers often focus on their main ideas and overlook the reader’s need for examples, connections and explanations. After a break, you are much more likely to spot such gaps in what you have written. Remember, your reader hasn't spend the last few days or hours thinking about this subject, so make sure that you have given them the information they need to follow your train of thought. 
• Imagine new approaches: Reading from a fresh perspective allows you to see patterns in your writing that you may have overlooked previously or to imagine new angles you might take on the topic.

Because writing about a topic is a way of learning about it, the revision process is especially important. It is likely that, at the end of an essay, you have learned something about the topic that will change your earlier (and sometimes even later) sections.  

Reviewing and revising your work will help you to:

• “re-see” your topic and what you have said about it
• see new points to make, find better explanations of your ideas, and make interesting new connections among those ideas
• improve your understanding of your topic and the quality of your essay

Revising, drafting, and editing are closely related processes. In fact, most writers do not readily distinguish the three as they work. They do not simply draft once, revise once and edit once in that order. They are likely to move back and forth among these processes effortlessly and frequently. This module will help you develop efficient and productive strategies for revising your work, wherever you may be in the writing process.