Revising is an important part of the writing process. In fact, it can be just as important as the actual writing stuff down part. Revision is the time where you look critically at your writing, rethink how you are approaching your topic or piece, consider the tone and how an audience might react to it, and then make changes that impact the overall writing. Revision does not equal proofreading. Proofreading is the last stage of the revision process, in fact.
Have you ever started picking your room or your house and realized you needed to vacuum? And then after you vacuum, you see how dusty your dressers or table is, or you realize there are crumbs all over the counters. And then you clean those up, but in the process of cleaning up those crumbs or bits of paper or dust, you drop some on the floor. So, now your freshly vacuumed (or swept) floor is no longer clean. And you have to do it all over again.
This is what can happen with revision if you don't approach it with a plan and an order of operation.
Start with the big stuff then move your way down to the small stuff.
See the following pages for specific resources to help with revising and proofreading your paper. These links can also be accessed through the navigation menu.
HOCs and MOCs: High and Middle Order Concern Revision Resources
LOCs: Later Order Concern Revision Resources
In writing, we call the "big stuff" High Order Concerns (HOCs). These are the really big issues in a paper. Is the writing fulfilling the purpose that it needs to fulfil? Is it written in the appropriate genre? Is it written to an appropriate audience? Is it written about whatever topic it is supposed to be written about?
For example, if you are at work and your manager needs a sales report for the last quarter and, instead of a report, you decide to write an essay. The essay is not the genre they asked for or need, and generally, this would be a big problem that needs to be fixed.
Next down the list is Middle Order Concerns (MOCs). These are generally paper-level or paragraph level issues that impact understanding and readability. For example, if you are writing an essay for a class and you write a three-page pager as one long paragraph. The lack of paragraph breaks will cause readability issues. It's very hard for humans to read a wall of text—we tend to lose our place, get distracted, and generally have to work harder to understand the content. Also, without paragraphs, there will be a lack of overall organization. Paragraphs help organize the parts of an argument or different topics within a paper. This is even true of genres like emails, once they are over a certain size.
The final area to work on with revision is Later Order Concerns (LOCs, sometimes called Low Order Concerns). This is where we can get into proofreading. Once we know the writing is effective, written to the appropriate audience and in the appropriate genre, and stylistically well organized and written for that genre, then we can move onto typos, grammar and mechanics.
If we skip the top two concerns and jump down to proofreading, we risk two things: 1) we may need to rewrite sections of the paper that we already proofread and then we'll need to proofread all over again, or 2) we'll decide it's too much work to go back and revise the bigger things and just skip them altogether. The second one here is the most common. If in your head, you are "done" writing when that first draft is done, then it feels like all this extra work to go back and revise large sections of the paper. However, the draft isn't the done point.
We need to retrain our brains to know that is just a part of the writing process, and that revision is an equally important part. Once you do effectively retrain your brain around the writing process, though, there are multiple benefits. First, your writing will be stronger with substantial and thoughtful revision. And second, it can take the pressure and stress off of the act of writing. If you know you can rewrite it later and that's perfectly fine to do, then you may find yourself not getting quite so caught up in the first draft being "good" or "perfect." When I'm struggling with a piece of writing, I enjoy being able to tell myself that's "tomorrow-Sarah's problem" and then moving on! It keeps me from getting stuck in the moment when something isn't coming together the way I'd like.
So, hopefully throughout this class and, as you continue your education, you'll learn to incorporate revision as a critical part of the writing process. Your writing will definitely see an improvement when you do. Even the best writers (or maybe even, especially the best writers) revise frequently.