Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading

Start improving your draft by reflecting on what you have written thus far:

Revise your draft.

If your readers are having difficulty with your draft, or if you think there is room for improvement, try some of the strategies listed in the Troubleshooting Guide that follows. It can help you fine-tune your presentation of the genre’s basic features.

A TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE

Click the Troubleshooting Guide to download.

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A Well-Presented Subject My readers don’t understand the subject or see why it is important.

  • Reconsider what your readers already know, and provide additional background if necessary.

  • Try providing examples or an anecdote to interest readers in the subject.

  • Quote authorities and explain research findings, including statistics, to demonstrate the subject’s importance — that it is widespread and significant.

  • Use visuals — graphs, tables, photographs, or screen shots — to make the subject more vivid.

  • Review your research to see if you can add anything to help clarify the subject for your readers, or do some additional research.

  • Pose the subject directly or indirectly as a why question, and then answer it.

A Well-Supported Causal Analysis My readers don’t understand which of the causes or effects I am arguing are the most plausible.

  • Be explicit about which causes or effects are the ones you think are most plausible, and why you think so.

  • Use a thesis and forecasting statement followed by topic sentences with key terms to announce your main causes or effects.

My readers do not find my causal argument convincing.

  • Whenever possible, explain how the cause-effect relationship works, backing up your explanation with appropriate support.

  • Cite more credible experts, being sure to give their credentials.

  • Cite research studies and statistics rather than limiting yourself to examples and anecdotes.

  • Review your sources to make sure they are varied, or do additional focused research to fill in where your analysis is weak.

  • Make sure your sources are cited properly.

An Effective Response to Objections and Alternative Causes or Effects My readers do not think my responses are effective.

  • Respond directly to criticism of your reasoning by showing that you are not mistaking correlation or chronology for causation.

  • Demonstrate that you understand the complexity of the cause-effect relationship you are analyzing, for example, by indicating how your cause relates to other contributing causes.

  • If your readers think you have overlooked an objection, consider it seriously and do further research to respond to it if necessary.

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A Clear, Logical Organization My readers think my analysis is not clear or logical.

  • If readers have difficulty finding the thesis statement or topic sentences, consider revising them.

  • Add a forecasting statement early in the essay to help guide readers.

  • Review your use of transitions, and consider adding transitions to make the logical relationships among sentences and paragraphs clear to readers.

  • Refer to visuals explicitly (for example, by adding the direction, “see fig. 1”), and include a caption tying each visual to the text discussion.

  • Outline your essay to review its structure, and move, add, or delete sections as necessary to strengthen coherence.

Edit and proofread your draft.

Two kinds of errors occur often in causal analysis essays: mechanical errors in using numbers, and use of the wordy and illogical construction the reason is because. The following guidelines will help you check your essay for these common errors.

Checking Your Use of Numbers

Whether they are indicating the scope of a phenomenon or citing the increase or decrease of a trend, writers who are speculating about causes or effects often cite dates, percentages, fractions, and other numbers. Academic writing prescribes conventional ways of writing such numbers. Look, for example, at these sentences from an essay about increasing reports of sexual harassment in the workplace:

According to a 1994 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, the percentage of human resource professionals who have reported that their departments handled at least one sexual harassment complaint rose from 35 percent in 1991 to 65 percent in 1994. The jury awarded Weeks $7.1 million in punitive damages, twice what she sought in her lawsuit.

The writer follows the convention of spelling out numbers (one) that can be written as one or two words and using a combination of numerals and words for a large number ($7.1 million). (She could also have used numerals for the large number: $7,100,000.) She uses numerals for dates and percentages.

The Problem Ignoring the rules for writing dates, percentages, fractions, and other numbers in academic writing can confuse your readers or make them question your attention to detail.

A Note on Grammar and Spelling Checkers

These tools can be helpful, but do not rely on them exclusively to catch errors in your text: Spelling checkers cannot catch misspellings that are themselves words, such as to for too. Grammar checkers miss some problems, sometimes give faulty advice for fixing problems, and can flag correct items as wrong. Use these tools as a second line of defense after your own (and, ideally, another reader’s) proofreading and editing efforts.

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The Correction

Checking for Reason Is Because Constructions

When you analyze causes, you need to offer reasons and support for your claims. Consequently, essays that analyze causes often contain sentences constructed around a reason is because pattern, as in the following example:

The reason we lost the war is because troop morale was down.

The Problem Since because means “for the reason that,” such sentences say essentially that “the reason is the reason.”

The Correction Rewrite the sentence so that it uses either the reason. . . is or because, but not both:

The reason we lost the war is that troop morale was down.

We lost the war because troop morale was down.