4. Revision

Revision. Literally, revision is the process of seeing (vision) again (re-). Seeing differently. Seeing, perhaps, from a different point of view. Hopefully, the response has given you enough objectivity to see what is working and what is not working in your paper, where you can take it next, how you can make it better than anything you were capable of before. If you can’t see that yet, you probably need more response.

Revision might consist of writing a whole new and different draft, approaching the topic from a completely different angle. Or it might be a matter of clarifying some small points, adding an example here and there. It will be different for every author, every paper. It’s your writing, not your responder’s, so there’s no sense in slavishly doing whatever a responder tells you to do. But at the same time, the only point of writing is to communicate to an audience, and unless you are the only audience, the response you get had better be useful.

You may add, delete, rearrange, rephrase, any combination. You decide. You might work on ideas and content, organization, voice, sentence fluency, and/or word choice. Your newfound insights into the effectiveness of your draft are your guide.

Then you might need more response to see how your new draft is working. The process of response and revision continues until you are satisfied that what you have written is as good as it can get. Then, only then, you are ready for EDITING.