Revision Assignment Sheet/Checklist

Due: [Date]
Remember to include the enclosed Assignment Checklist, your original essay, and any new pre-writing that you have done. Include the results of nutshelling your essay (explained below).

Assignment:
Rewrite your argumentative essay on Euripides's The Bacchae.

The Process to follow:
Rewriting an essay is much more than merely revisiting your prose and fine-tuning the words that are already there. Revision is a complete reconsideration of your essay as a piece of rhetoric, a re-viewing of your essay as an argument participating in public debate on an important issue of literary interpretation. You will likely have to add to and delete sections of your argument. Perhaps you now see something that originally seemed tangential to your topic as central, or now see that your concluding observations need to be presented first. Maybe you feel that you can use the text more strongly and need to deepen your usage of textual quotations. Be prepared to radically restructure your argument and thus reorganize your entire essay. Try not to feel overly constrained by what you have already written. Nothing is written in stone. No word is sacred; no sentence divine.

Consider the following questions before starting:

First, read through your essay without making any alterations aloud. Try to read as dispassionately and as critically as you can. Try to consider the writing before you as if it is not your own (I know that's hard).

1. What is the thesis statement? -- Is it as clear and as complex as it could be?
2. Does the essay argue what it says it would? Does the essay argue what you intended it to argue? (Note that these questions are not the same.)
3. Does this essay explain fully to a reader why its argument is an important one?
4. Is the essay as currently structured and organized the most powerful way of arguing what it wants to argue?

When revising, follow these steps:
For this rewrite, I want you to be thinking about how to re-structure your essay in ways that will allow it to articulate a more persuasive and powerful argument. The below process of "nutshelling" will help you transform your writing into more reader-based prose. That is, this technique will be useful in reshaping your initial prose, prose that comes from the process of clarifying your thoughts on the subject at hand, into prose more clearly public in its focus -- prose clearly addressed to a public audience, concerned with their perceptions, and attempting to persuade via a carefully constructed and clearly delineated argument.

Nutshelling your essay:
1. Without consulting your current topic sentences, summarize on a blank piece of paper every paragraph in your essay. Write "In a nutshell, the subject of this paragraph is ________. This paragraph argues ____________for the following reason:_________." (Make sure that you fill in the blanks with as much detail as possible.)

2. Examine the sentences you have written down -- What is the relationship between these statements? Do these sentences reflect points in an argument that logically follow from each other? Or can the sentences be re-arranged in a way that would make your argument stronger? (For instances, does sentence 4 articulate an idea that your reader needs to know before sentence 1?) Do you want to save your strongest point for last or first?

3. What is the relationship between these sentences and the thesis of your paper? Are the sentences only aspects of the topic of your paper that while relevant to your subject are not points in argument? Transform every sentence into a statement that is clearly assertive. Alter your thesis, if necessary.

4. Can some of these sentences be dropped? Are several of these sentences very similar? Combine similar sentences -- you might be able to combine the paragraphs they represent.

Play with the resultant outline. Re-organize its structure and map out new connections. Finally, restructure your essay according to the argumentative structure this new outline represents. Be ruthless! Do not be afraid either to cut paragraphs or to dramatically restructure existing paragraphs -- Your essay will be clearer as a result.

A Helpful Hint:
Remember to look over the Guidelines for Academic Essays' handout, and all other material on writing you have received so far in this course.

NB: Please keep in mind that the comments I make on your essay are not exhaustive. If I have highlighted a particular stylistic problem once in your essay, it is up to you to ensure that all instances of this problem are corrected. Ultimately, you are rewriting your essay to learn the process of revision and thus become a better writer -- you are not rewriting this essay merely to please this particular teacher's obsessions.

Checklist for Revision of Essay I: Name_________________________

____Have you formatted your essay properly? (Is it double-spaced, with a non-justified right margin, with your name and the date on the right hand margin, and with a center title that succinctly addresses the thesis of the essay?)

____Do you have a clear complex thesis statement? Is your thesis an argument expressing a clear intention and organizational focus? Is the thesis statement a useful "umbrella" for your major ideas? Is the thesis placed appropriately in your essay?

_____Are each of your paragraphs organized around an assertion that expands the argument put forth in your thesis statement?

_____Have you used at least three textual quotations? Have you punctuated these quotations accurately and fully integrated them into the form and syntax of your prose? Are they referenced with the correct Act, scene, and line number in parentheses? Have you given enough dramatic context for each quotation?

_____Is your introduction engaging and enticing to the reader? Have you tried to draw the reader in? Is is short and incisive?

_____Does the conclusion finish off your analysis without seeming redundant?

_____Have you proofread, spell-checked and read-aloud to yourself this final version of your essay?

What were your plans for this revision? </LI>

What changes have you made to the argument and structure of this essay? Why? </LI>

Do you believe you have fully accomplished your goals for this revision? </LI>

What do you feel you did especially well in this essay? </LI>