revisions

In the reading "Revising for Purpose", Ballenger writes about different ways of revising a paper.
Somehow stepping back from your draft and looking at it objectively, bearing in mind that this is one of the hardest things to do with your own drafts. Starting with what you believe is the main purpose of your paper, and that over time this purpose may have broadened or narrowed to something different. Another was to mark up what was your own words vs. what is taken from other articles, making sure you have a good mix of both and that they flow together well. This is a good way to see if you have a voice in your paper instead of just a list of facts.
Writing out your main point and coming up with questions about it is another good way to see a different side of the point. This is always good to do with other people. They always see things that you will not. You tend to get tunnel-vision on subjects and a fresh look into a subject is always a good thing, just as we have done in our workshops. I have taken a lot of good info from those. Ideas I did not think of, but were quite obvious to others. The cut-and-paste revision is one I believe would help quite a bit. Cutting up paragraphs and then looking at them to see how they fit the main point is a great idea. Sometimes paragraphs fit into the paper but if you read them alone, you might be lost as to why you put them in or you may find they fit somewhere else better in the paper. this leads into the information part of his writing. Sometimes when you put information in, it does not flow very well. Revising facts in your own words takes some work. Doing it in multiple revisions can really help you. Finally, reading your own writing out loud can help to determine if you speak with a voice or just a list of facts that sound like you are reading from the dictionary. Rewording things as you would say them can make more of an impact to your readers. Ballenger speaks of many different ways to revise in this chapter. All of them make sense, but as he says, you may not always be so willing to part with the version you already have. I believe the workshops really help with this, showing you other avenues you can take that you never looked at before.