A Good Strategy for Analyzing and Revising a First Draft of a Term Paper

A good strategy for analyzing and reviewing a first draft of a term paper involves several steps that guide you through process and critiquing your own work. Some students have a difficult time editing their own work, because they are unsure of what should be edited or how to clean up the paper. They are too involved with their piece of writing and may get caught up in the subjectivity of the paper. Use the following guide as a good strategy.

Start with Fixing the Easy Parts

Go through the whole paper and fix any simple spelling, punctuation, grammar and overall sentence structure mistakes.
Get this part over first. It’s the easiest part of the process, and it will get you in an analyzing and revising mode.

Revisit Your Thesis Statement, Your Main Point.

After writing the whole paper and putting so much effort forth, you may get lost and almost forget your main thesis. It can be easy to go off on a tangent, no longer paying attention to the main point.
So, revisit your thesis statement and ensure that your paper neatly follows and addresses your thesis statement all the way through.

Reassess Your Research and Evidence

Now that you’ve refocused your thesis, you can go back and better reassess your presented research and evidence.
You can better determine what may be missing or what should be taken out.

Revise and Make Edits Paying Attention to Tone and Voice

Now, go back and fix the more difficult parts of general editing, the tone of your writing and your voice.
Ensure your tone is professional. Research term papers are not personal. Try reading your paper aloud to see hear how your paper reads.
Make sure you turn any passive voice statement into an active voice statement. Using an active voice ensures proper readability. Passive voice usually sounds boring.

Clean Up the Paper with Solely the Reader in Mind

Try to step outside of yourself and read your paper as if you are reading it for the first time. Pretend that it is not your paper.
How does the paper sound to you? What are the best points? Where were you engaged the most? Why? Be sure to answer all of these questions.

Have Someone Else Read Your Paper

Once, the person has finished reading your paper, ask this person the same questions you asked yourself while making pretend you were reading your work as another.
Tell the person you really need constructive criticism and to be honest. Ask him or her not to be worried about offending you (and then stick to that!).

Students often need help with analyzing and revising their own term paper. So much time is spent on a research paper that student can easily lose site of the main point the research started with. The strategy provided here gives students a good guideline in analyzing and revising their own work. This strategy helps students to look at their work objectively, and thus, turn in a great research paper.