English Composition 2

ENG 1002 Home Page | Illinois Valley Community College

Optional Revisions

Use the Revision Checklists to help you with the optional revisions:

Due Date

The optional revisions are due on Thursday, July 21, 2005.

The Revisions

This page presents some questions and answers about the final revisions.

Do I have to revise an essay?

No. The final revisions are optional. You may choose not to revise any of your essays, or you may revise Essay 1, Essay 2, or both essays.

What should I turn in with the final revisions?

Please submit the earlier graded version of each essay you revise, with the comment sheet attached

How much do the revisions count?

The grade for a revised essay will take the place of the grade recorded for the earlier draft of that same essay, and Essay 1 and Essay 2 each count as 15% of the final course grade. If the grade you earn on a revision is higher than the grade you earned the first time you submitted the essay for a grade, I will replace that earlier, lower grade with the grade you earn on the revision. However, if the grade you earn on the required revision is lower than the grade you earned the first time you submitted the essay for a grade, I will not change the earlier grade you earned.

Can the grades on revisions be lower than the grades on the earlier drafts?

Yes. There are a couple of reasons why. When I read and evaluate the final revisions, I will be evaluating those papers not just as papers but as revisions. I always compare the earlier draft with the revision. I look both at how good the revision is and at what kinds of improvements you have made to the earlier version. In other words, I look to see how effectively and how extensively you have revised the paper.

No or few changes to a paper will substantially reduce the grade of that paper.

One of the main reasons that grades on revisions sometimes go down is a lack of effort from the writer. I would much rather see you try to make effective changes to your papers and maybe not be completely successful instead of not trying to do much with the papers.

The revisions should also demonstrate that the writer has mastered a few basic concepts concerning essay writing, such as

the effective use of a thesis statement and an understanding of its purpose,
effective use of topic sentences,
well-focused body paragraphs,
well-supported and well-developed ideas,
a logical progression of ideas,
an avoidance of stylistic weaknesses, and
a mastery of the "mechanics" of Standard English usage.

The grade on a final revision will be reduced substantially if any of these aspects of the essay is weak.

This is important! As explained below and as suggested on the Revision Checklist page, revising involves much more than simply proofreading and correcting mistakes. A "revision" that appears only to be a corrected (and not revised) version of the earlier graded draft will receive a lower grade than the earlier version. Again, if you only correct the errors and submit a paper as a "revision," the grade on the paper will go down.

The revisions are a great opportunity to raise your grade in the course, but revising an essay does not guarantee a higher grade for that essay. The essay must be stronger than the earlier draft and must show evidence of significant and meaningful revision.

What should I consider as I revise my essays?
Everything. When you revise a paper, you should give consideration to all aspects of the paper, including

Thesis and the thesis statement
Organization
Use of topic sentences
Support and development of ideas
The logical progression of ideas
Use of transitions
Stylistic matters (word choice, tone, sentence variety, etc.)
"Mechanics" (correction of errors, the correct format, use of a title, etc.)

As you revise an essay, you may be tempted to start by identifying and correcting the errors indicated on the graded version. Avoid this temptation! Writers are most often successful with their revisions if they begin with the "larger" aspects of a paper, such as the thesis, organization, and the support and development of ideas, as opposed to beginning with the sentence-level matters. Part of this is psychological. If you spend time at the beginning of the revision process correcting all of the errors, you probably will not want to delete anything that you have corrected, even if your paper could be stronger if you deleted some of the sentences that you corrected.

It’s one thing to correct an error that has been pointed out to you, but the real evidence of learning comes when a writer can revise a paper substantially and have fewer errors in the final revisions than may have been in the earlier draft.

For example, if comma splices have been a problem for you, it would be good if you could correct those errors that have been pointed out on your papers, but it would be better if you can demonstrate in your revisions that you understand what comma splices are and that you can avoid them as you revise sentences and write new sentences.

Note that errors substantially reduce the grades of final revisions.

Mastering Standard English usage should be something you do very earlier in your college career.

How much time should I spend on my revisions?
Most likely, you have already taken your essays through several revision stages before you submitted them the first time. Still, you should do as much as you can to make those earlier drafts even stronger as final revisions. You have more time to strengthen your papers, some specific comments on each paper, and I hope, a good understanding of what constitutes strong writing, so you should be able to make improvements to the papers you choose to revise. Spending at least a few hours on each revision seems reasonable (as a minimum).

When I revise my essays, should I make changes based on your comments on the graded versions?
Yes. When I write comments on an essay, I try to identify what I think is strong about an essay and what I think could be more effective. These are your essays, of course, and you must decide how to make them stronger, but the suggestions I have written on the earlier drafts indicate ways that I think the essays could be better, and, if those aspects of the essays remain unchanged in the final revisions, I will still think that they could be more effective.

When I revise, do I just need to follow your comments on the earlier draft, and that’s all?
No. As suggested above, you should review all aspects of your essay as you are revising it, not just what I pointed out. I write a lot of comments on papers, but, on most papers, I could probably write another few pages of comments if I had the time. I try to point out what I think is most important, but I do not point out everything that I think could be done to a paper to make that paper more effective.

Often, the most impressive work on revisions involves changes to aspects of the essay that I did not comment on when I evaluated the earlier version. For example, I have had students rewrite introductions to their essays even though I did not make any comments regarding the introductions. Those students discovered on their own ways that the introductions could be more effective than they were in the earlier drafts.

It would be a good idea for you to review my comments on all of your papers, regardless of which essay or essays you choose to revise. Collectively, these comments should give you a clear sense of what is working well with your writing and what might be stronger ("with your writing," not just with a particular essay).

Are the grading standards different for the final revisions than they have been for earlier drafts?
I still follow IVCC's Grading Standards for Student Essays when I evaluate the final revisions. However, the final revisions are, in a sense, "second-chance" essays, and I have high expectations for them. Weaknesses or errors in the final revisions, then, tend to reduce the grades more significantly than the same weaknesses or errors in earlier drafts may have reduced the grades of those essays.

What if I have questions about my revisions?
Ask those questions! And make sure to ask questions if you do not understand some of my comments on your earlier drafts.