10 Things

10 THINGS: REVISION PROMPTS FOR THE RBA (or any essay)

1- Box (or underline): Do you have an accurate conversational thesis as well as a specific and focused argumentative thesis?  Do they work well together?  Do you transition effectively into the start of the “conversation”? These moves are all absolutely crucial for the introduction.  The conversational thesis should map the contours and characters in a highly specific way, charting crucial background. Your argumentative thesis should not merely suggest, but clearly articulate your argument, zooming in on particular critiques and suggestions. Mark your conversational thesis and your argumentative thesis with a single and double box, respectively.  They should offer a  map and mirror for your entire paper.

2- Mark with a “*” (or highlight red): All unique / innovative sentence patterns (sophisticated use of em-dashes, series, elegant sentence structures, etc., etc.).  If you don’t have eight stars in your paper, add more interesting sentence structures. Mix it up!

3- Mark with “T-Work” (or highlight yellow): Seek out the weakest bridges / transitions.  Fix the weakest link. Transition between key ideas grounding each paragraph or source–move beyond mere sequence and stacking.

4- Bracket with a “{ }“ (or highlight green): Find every moment in your paper where either at least three sentences in a row begin with a noun and that replicate a simple and static subject-verb-object sentence patterns, or where sentence pacing / length is static.  Use our Patterns to very sentence structure and length. Also, do “word math” on a paragraph (counting the word in each sentence). If the numbers over between 8 and 15 words, mix it up! Also, note that inserting a semicolon does almost nothing for pacing and rhythm (when dealing with static sentence structures).

5- Bracket with a “[ ]” (or highlight purple): Bracket any paragraph where you have at least 6 “to be” verbs (is, are, were, etc).  Introduce more specific verbal energy.  Reduce the number of “to be” verbs by at least half. Also be on the lookout for buried verbs that lead to lack of concision.

6- Mark with a L (or highlight orange): Change at least two passive verbs to an active verb—unless the passive serves a purpose.

7- double-vertical line in margin (or italicize): Identify a quote that requires more effective “framing,” whether than involves setting up the quote or source more thoroughly, introducing a signal phrase, or following up more dynamically.  Frame it! Note that only well-chosen and complex / engaging quotes require and benefit from more elaborate framing. If you’re having trouble framing out a quote, you might need to select a better quote!

8- Choose your WORST sentence and underline it.  It can be the most convoluted one, the most unclear, the most lacking in verbal energy, the most repetitive.  Rewrite it and make it strong.

9-  Bracket with “#” (or highlight blue): Find a sentence with at least three prepositional phrases in a row and rewrite the sentence to avoid this pattern.  Strings of  prepositional phrases in your papers on top of other bad things in them tend to sap the energy!

10- Choose your BEST sentence and double-underline it or underline it and highlight it yellow)—this should be a sentence that makes you proud every time you read it. Make sure you have at least one of those.

BONUS: STYLE–add some spunk and bite! I’ll notice, I promise!

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