Revision Tips

So you've written the rough draft for your expressive essay, but feel stuck in revision. What can you do to make your paper better?

Happily, Captain Revision is here to help. He gonna kick yo flabby little ess ... ay into shape!


Cap. V (as he prefers to be called) just wants you to remember one little word:
P = Plot Points

Do the events you have written about to prove your point go up and down on the story graph? Your essay will be much more compelling if they do. If you find that your essay's plot points only go in one direction, find a place where you can change the story's direction, however briefly.
For more on this click here

P also = Punctuation

Which includes grammar, capitalization, paragraphing, etc. On the PAWS test you won't have access to a spelling or grammar checker, so you need to do it yourself. I noticed that many of you don't tend to capitalize I. It's OK to not capitalize I on Myspace, but on the PAWS test uncapitalized I's will hurt your score.

O = Zero in on Your Thesis
A thesis is the point of your essay. In the case of an expressive essay, your thesis will be located at the end of the essay. Your story will support your thesis. Make sure your thesis encapsulates the idea you want the reader to get from the story.

For example, if I had told the story of Red Riding Hood, my thesis paragraph might read: "This story has helped me navigate the treacherous world of used car salesmen. I just remember that though their words may sound sincere, under them hide ravening wolves setting up a trap for me. If they can do it, they'll eat not only me, but my grandmother too. For this reason, I always hack off the heads of used car salesmen before they can lure unsuspecting buyers into their webs of deception. And you should too."

W = Weak Places
Look for weak words, for example: "to be" verbs like did, had, done, am, are, were. These are plain boring words. Think of something more interesting.

For example:

Boring: My mom and I were at the store looking at shoes.

Interesting: My mom and I burst into Dillard's, our mission: shoe shopping.

Note that, among other things, we replaced "were" with "burst." Of course, we could replace were with almost anything. We slouched into the store; we dragged through the store, we raced into the store. Anything to spark the reader's imagination.

Boring = Find boring words and make them exciting.

Interesting = Hunt down boring words and inject them with excitement.