Revising a paper is one of the most difficult parts of writing since it takes effort to recognize mistakes and to admit one’s wrong. It could be psychologically demanding since many people tend to be too self-confident and, for example, do not want to accept criticism or cut some irrelevant pieces of their texts. Yet, it is necessary for anyone engaged in writing to abolish these prejudices and comprehend that all people can make mistakes and cannot create a beautiful, errorless paper in the first and only attempt. As such, I tried to construct a paper following the guidelines and search for all matters that made me doubt their pronunciation or other problematic areas. Still, my text contains punctuation and grammatical mistakes, which I aimed to revise.
The revision process went in two stages for me: first, I checked the content of my work for compliance with the guidelines, and second, I corrected the mistakes that my professor pointed out. During the first stage, which occurred sometime after I had written my first draft, I asked myself questions resembling these proposed revisions by Graff et al. in their book for writers. Some of these questions are: “Do you present your argument as a response to what others say? Do you refer to other views besides your own?” (Graff et al. 139). Next, I received the commentary from my professor and eliminated the outlined mistakes. Moreover, I checked the grammatical and punctuation rules that explain the correct form of the constructions and sentences that I used.
Thus, I have eliminated some mistakes in the structure and the content of the work from the beginning but missed some grammatical and punctuation mistakes. For example, I added a comma in paragraph 1, line 6 of my work because the conjunction “but” requires it in this context. Next, and most importantly, I received commentary on the article’s use in multiple sentences. In some instances, I omitted definite or indefinite articles, and I inserted them where needed in the revision process. Namely, in the case of “nation,” the definite article is needed because I use the term concerning “a person,” so it is meant to be this person’s nation. Furthermore, I corrected some spelling errors that had been made and underlooked by me due to the lack of attention. In “hegemony,” I left out one letter and corrected it; the other person’s review is useful for such errors since the writer often cannot discern the misspelling. The other mistakes were concerning the use of the preposition “on” and the apostrophe in the possessive case. Hence, I could recognize my mistakes, deepen their origin, and correct them with no further problems.
To conclude, the revision process might be different for each person: some need additional commentaries, and some can edit their works for themselves. For me, a beginner writer, it was important and useful to receive feedback and learn from my mistakes. I have acquired new knowledge about revisioning while reading the guidelines for revision and realized that it is a necessary point in writing for writers of every level. I have understood that my knowledge of grammar and punctuation is not complete, as well as that I can be inattentive while writing. In the future, I will use this experience as mental material for writing better.
Work Cited
Graff, Gerald, et al. “They Say / I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing With Readings. 2nd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.