Global Revision: Re-thinking Purpose, Audience, and Thesis

Re-thinking Purpose

If possible, set aside your working draft for a day or two before you attempt to revise it. This will help give you some mental distance from your work, so you can come back to it with a fresh perspective. Now that you have written a draft of your paper, you are not the same person as you were before you began. Writing the draft has changed you--you know your topic differently now since you have written about it. You also have more experience now as a writer. The longer and more complex the piece, the more profound these changes in you may be.

Re-Discovery
Try to be aware of these changes in your thinking as you begin the revision process.

• What do you know about your topic now that you didn't know before you wrote the last draft?
• Draw a map of all the points you didn't say about your topic? Do you think you want to include any of these now?
• Do some freewriting about your draft. If you could start all over again, what would you do differently?
• Does your topic seem too large and unwieldy? Do you feel overwhelmed with the piece? If so, try to narrow your focus. Choose the one paragraph that is most interesting to you, or choose the idea or image that is most memorable for your writing group. Place this image, sentence, or paragraph at the top of a new page and use it as a starting point for a new draft.
• Perhaps you have the opposite problem though--instead of your topic being too large, your paper is too short. You need to add depth and detail. Often the best way to expand a piece is by adding examples, case studies, or illustrations. Try free-writing two or three examples that you could add to your paper to illustrate your thesis.
• Another strategy for expanding a short paper is by free-writing a dialogue about your topic with a partner. You can do this by passing a paper back and forth between you, by sending e-mail correspondence, by participating in an on-line chat group, or by tape recording a conversation. Try one of these.

Collaboration
The goal at this stage of revision is to expand thinking about the draft. Be creative. To help with this expansion, share your draft with your writing group. After they have read your piece, ask them to freewrite for about 10 minutes and tell you what they would write about this topic if it were their project. Ask them to give you their notes.

Role-play
Try re-writing a section of your paper as though you were another person. For example, come at it as a comedian...as a talk-show host like Oprah Winfrey...as a news reporter...as a scholar in another discipline. Also try to write a response to your paper as though you were one of the readers in your target audience.

Re-thinking Audience

Free-write a character sketch of a person who is typical of your target audience. Note what you assume to be the gender, age, sex, ethnic background, education, occupation, and residence of this reader. What do your readers already know about your topic? What do they need to know? Why should they care about this topic?

How do you want to affect your readers' attitudes or behavior? Re-read your paper with these readers in mind. What revisions would make you paper more effective with this audience?

Re-Thinking Thesis or Claim

What is your thesis or claim? Does all your evidence support your thesis or claim, or do you want to revise it now that you have more knowledge of your topic? As a sentence, is your thesis or claim unified, restricted and precise? Perhaps you want to review the PowerPoint presentation, "Thesis Statements."

Collaborate with your writing group about your revision plans.

Return to Drafting and compose a new draft of your paper.