Revision Exercise 1: Hotspotting*
True essay revision is more than cleaning up errors in spelling and punctuation (that’s editing, the final stage of the writing process).
Revision asks you to look at an essay from the reader’s perspective: do they have enough information to be convinced?
Are you giving them information in the right order?
Are you sentences clear and effective? There are many revision techniques and strategies. Below you’ll find instructions for one of them.
Follow the directions below to revise parts of a section of your essay. Attach the original version and revised version (clearly marked as such), preferably as part of a single document, when you submit, this revision assignment; make sure you answer questions 1-3 (at the bottom of this page) as well.
- Revisit your draft of Section 1. Reread the draft, marking (underline, highlight, star, etc) places where you think your writing is working. Such places could be sentences that express thougLitprovoking ideas, strong or startling images, or central tensions, or they could be places to be explored in more detail. These places are your draft’s “hot spots.”
- Copy and paste one such hot spot into a new document.
- Now write—using the hot spot as a starting point—for at least 15-20 minutes. Don’t worry if you lose track of your original idea: you might be in the process of finding a better one.
- Repeat the process 3-4 times.
- Now reassemble your writing. You can paste your original Writing (with highlights) into this