Original Version: Revising Paragraphs
While making global revisions, you have probably also worked on revising paragraphs to clarify your point or add more explanation. That work is important, but the strategies in this section are designed to help you make sure that your individual paragraphs are solid by looking at the specific qualities of good paragraphs: focus, development, and coherence. These can be particularly useful for paragraphs that don’t seem to be working well.
Color Coding Topics: A Strategy to Strengthen Focus
A focused paragraph has one main idea that usually appears in a topic sentence (at least in academic writing), and the rest of the paragraph elaborates on that idea. If your paragraph isn’t focused, your reader may struggle to follow your point and the connections among the ideas in your paragraph.
This activity works on body paragraphs, but not really on introductions or conclusions. As with previous activities, you can do this with the highlighter feature in your word processor or with actual highlighters on a printed copy of your paper.
Part 1: Highlighting
- Identify the paragraph’s topic sentence and highlight it in one color.
- Look at the next sentence (or the first sentence in the paragraph if the topic sentence isn’t the first sentence), and decide if it’s on the same topic. If it is, highlight it in the same color. If it isn’t, highlight it in a different color.
- Continue highlighting this way, matching the highlight color to the sentence topic, until all of the sentences in the paragraph are marked. Note that you can have split sentences (sentences that have more than one topic in them). In those cases, highlight the parts of the sentence in different colors accordingly.
Part 2: Analyzing Your Highlighting
- If your paragraph is all one color, then you have a well-focused paragraph.
- If your paragraph contains two colors, it’s probably fine. Paragraphs can shift focus sometimes, so a paragraph that has two colors may still work as a single paragraph. Look carefully at the topics to make sure that they are connected and that you haven’t dropped in a new topic in that really belongs in a different paragraph.
- If your paragraph has three or more colors, you probably need to think about separating the topics.
- I frequently see this problem when the writer starts a paragraph on one idea, realizes that they need to explain a specific point before getting into the original topic, and then shifts back to the first topic, with an additional shift in topic later in the paragraph. Often, that second topic can be pulled out and developed into a new paragraph that is placed before the current one.
- This can also happen when the paragraph is very long and simply isn’t broken into chunks to make reading easier. Look for those moments when the colors shift, which can indicate good places for paragraph breaks. The new paragraphs might also need a little development (see the next strategy).
Example: Color-Coded Paragraphs
Here are some examples of paragraphs with one, two, and three colors.
Example 1
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
While the paragraph above is relatively short, every sentence ties in with one another. Of course, the paragraph could use more work, but the paragraph is well focused.
Example 2
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. By the time people become adults, they tend to forget how and why this is, causing them to simply state that they don’t know when children ask. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
This is an example of a paragraph that shifts focus but sticks with the main point. While this one probably doesn’t need to be broken up (though it could benefit from some reorganization), you can have a paragraph that has two colors where the different sentences shift focus drastically. Such a paragraph would need to be broken up.
Example 3
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. But did you know that in California, the sky has sometimes turned orange due to fires? Residents couldn’t even leave their homes, even if the sky looked hauntingly beautiful. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. By the time people become adults, they tend to forget how and why this is, causing them to simply state that they don’t know when children ask. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
While this paragraph has mostly the same focus points as the previous example, look at the blue section. These two sentences would work better as a topic sentence in a new paragraph due to the focus shifting away from the sky being blue to the sky being orange in California.
Occasionally, multiple colors in the same paragraph indicate a larger problem with topic organization throughout the paper. When this happens, the same topics appear in small clumps throughout the paper. One of my former students called these “rainbow paragraphs.”
As you can see in the example below, there’s a glaring issue with the focus of the paragraph. While the yellow and green sentences could work together, the other three colors would work best as their own paragraphs.
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. But did you know that in California, the sky has sometimes turned orange due to fires? Residents couldn’t even leave their homes, even if the sky looked hauntingly beautiful. A great way to learn about major fires is the news. Time and again, forest fires in the United States are shown on the news. People who have done gender reveal parties have recently been responsible for fires. These parties tend to involve fireworks or other explosives, and the people handling them don’t think of taking any precautions.
Rainbow paragraphs are really a global-level revision problem rather than a paragraph-level revision problem, and you can find them by doing a more complete version of this focus activity.
If you suspect you have a rainbow paragraph problem, create a key where you color code different topics in your paper, and then highlight according to that key. You can then gather all of the sentences that deal with each topic to work together in one or more paragraphs.
Revisiting the Evidence/Explanation Balance: A Strategy to Strengthen Development
A paragraph that is sufficiently developed has enough evidence and enough explanation, with “enough” being defined mostly by the reader. You can use the same kind of highlighting activity that you did for your entire paper to make sure that you are balancing evidence and explanation at the paragraph level, too. This strategy can help you identify paragraphs with too little evidence or too little explanation.
In the case of too little evidence, you may find that you thought your reader would already understand your point. To you, the point seems obvious, but keep in mind that your reader has not been working with the evidence that you have. Show them the source material that supports your ideas.
In the case of too little explanation, students commonly try to let the evidence speak for itself. But, as I said earlier, evidence itself is neutral. Evidence exists out in the world and doesn’t mean anything until we start interpreting and explaining it. You need to provide your reader with some of that explanation.
This activity can help when you have a paragraph that you believe is out of balance (something you might have noticed if you did the full project evidence/explanation balance activity).
Part 1: Highlighting
Using the highlighting feature in your word processor or actual highlighters on print versions, do the following:
- Highlight or otherwise mark all the supporting evidence in the your paragraph.
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- From textual sources, this would include quotations and paraphrases, facts, examples, and background information. Include the attributive tags and citations in these highlights.
- You can also do this with evidence from personal experience and observations or data that you have personally collected. These would be evidence in projects that don’t rely heavily on published sources.
- Using a different color, highlight or otherwise mark differently all of the explanations of that evidence that you have provided. This material should all be coming from your own ideas.
- Be sure that you have highlighted every sentence in the body of your paragraph. Note: You may have sentences that are part evidence and part explanation. That is perfectly fine.
Part 2: Analyzing Your Balance
Your focus here is a bit different from the earlier balancing activity where you examined the balance in your entire paper. Here you are looking for large-ish blocks of one color or the other in a single paragraph, usually three or more sentences. Those blocks are potential problem spots.
- Blocks of evidence can indicate the need for more explanation. While sometimes you will spend the majority of a paragraph providing a summary or an extended example from a source, much more often, you will want to present a little evidence (perhaps a sentence or two) and then explain how that evidence relates to your thesis or your point in that paragraph.
- Blocks of explanation can indicate the need for more evidence. Work through your sentences and determine whether a skeptical reader (one who doesn’t automatically agree with you) would be inclined to ask “How do you know?” If you find any of those moments, look for evidence you can bring in to support your point.
Don’t assume that you need to make a change every time you have one of these blocks, particularly when the blocks are explaining one of your points. Sometimes, these larger blocks are necessary.
Mapping Paragraphs: A Strategy to Strengthen Logical Coherence
A coherent paragraph holds together logically and stylistically; the ideas flow from sentence to sentence so that the reader can understand the author’s line of thought. Stylistic coherence is discussed in the editing section, but logical coherence is a paragraph-level matter.
When a paragraph coheres, it holds together topically—like a focused paragraph does—but its sentences logically lead your reader, step-by-step, through your thinking.
The activity below can pick up problems with focus as well as coherence, so if you don’t have substantial difficulties with focus, this activity might be a better choice for you. Also, unlike the focus activity, this one works on all paragraphs, including introductions and conclusions.
This activity can work well when you have a paragraph that feels jumbled or jumpy. It may be all on the same topic (so it may pass the focus test), but it still isn’t connecting well from point to point.
This exercise can be done on a computer, but it is probably easier to draw the map on a piece of paper.
Here, I’ll use an example paragraph:
(1) The technology barrier is what humanity will need to work on. (2) Even if we could convince everyone to pay the enormous prices of installation and switch to clean energy, we still would not have the technology to support this substantial change. (3) Nevshehir states that the technology that we have today is still expensive and not powerful enough compared with what fossil fuels deliver. (4) Fossil fuels have one major advantage over renewable resources: Oil-based fuels are stable and predictable. (5) On the other hand, solar and wind electricity production can vary, which can leave people’s homes vulnerable to energy shortages. (6) Moradiya brings another barrier into the technology issue when he states “Although the development of a coal plant requires about $6 per megawatt, it is known that wind and solar power plants also required high investment. In addition to this, storage systems of the generated energy are expensive and represent a challenge in terms of megawatt production.” (7) In these sentences, Moradiya shows that in addition to the costs of installing the power generators (e.g., solar panels and wind turbines), the costs to store excess energy can be a major hurdle, since the technology that we have today makes large batteries that could sustain cities expensive.
Works Cited
Moradiya, Meet A. “The Challenges Renewable Energy Sources Face.” AZoCleantech, 11 Jan. 2019, www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=836.
Nevshehir, Noel. “These Are the Biggest Hurdles On The Path to Clean Energy.” World Economic Forum, 19 Feb. 2021, www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/heres-why-geopolitics-could-hamper-the-energy-transition/.
Part 1: Create the Map
- Number all the sentences in your paragraph. Notice that sentences in a quotation are considered all part of one sentence (sentence 6 in the example).
- For each sentence after the first one, draw lines to indicate which sentence that one logically follows from. Looking at the topic of each sentence can help.
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- Use solid lines to indicate a clear logical connection between sentences.
- Use dashed/dotted lines to indicate a connection that isn’t as clear or strong as it could be.
- It is possible that a sentence may connect to more than one sentence.
- Sentences that are disconnected from all of the others in the paragraph should have no lines.
To the right, you’ll see a map of the paragraph above. In this map, sentence 1 is only loosely connected to 2. Sentences 2 and 3 are solidly connected and sentences 6 and 7 are solidly connected to each other and to sentence 3. Sentences 4 and 5, however, are connected to each other, but not to the rest of the map.
Part 2: Analyze the Map
Once you have created the map, you can use it to identify and correct trouble spots.
- Here are some of the most common problems:
- Sentences that aren’t connected to any others in paragraph (sentences 4 and 5 in the diagram). These usually indicate a sentence or group of sentences that belong in another paragraph. I see this most frequently with transition sentences that appear at the end of a paragraph instead of the beginning of the next. I also see this with ideas that need more explanation, sometimes in a separate paragraph.
- Sentences connected by dashed/dotted lines (sentences 1 and 2 in the diagram). These sentences probably belong together, but the logic between isn’t as clear as it needs to be for the reader to follow. These connections can often be strengthened by adding a little more explanation to one of the two sentences—or sometimes in a sentence between them.
- Sentences whose connection jumps over sentences (sentences 3 and 6 in the diagram, which skip over sentences 4 and 5). Usually, this means that the sentences are out of order. Try moving the sentences so that those that are connected on your map are next to each other. You may have to adjust the wording of the sentences, including transitions, as you do this.
- Not everything in a map is necessarily a problem:
- A single sentence with multiple sentences connected to it (sentence 3 in the diagram). This probably indicates an important sentence for helping your reader understand the relationships among the ideas in your paragraph. Usually, these don’t need any revision—at least not because of this.
- A late sentence that comes back to an early sentence in your paragraph (not seen in this diagram). This is often a way of either wrapping up an explanation and making the connection clear to your reader or starting a new explanation from a key central sentence in the paragraph. Usually, these don’t need any revision.
- Long chains of sentences in the same paragraph (not seen in this diagram). These may be a problem if your paragraph is very long. Look at whether one or more of those chains should be turned into a separate paragraph.
Checking Introductions and Conclusions
Whether we draft our introductions first, last, or somewhere in the middle, we are often at a different place in our thinking when we draft our conclusions. As a result, sometimes the ideas in the two paragraphs don’t align.
Also, sometimes a conclusion sounds more like an introduction. When I ask students to do the mixed-up paragraph exercise, about 20% of the students in any given class end up with the introduction and conclusion switched. This usually happens when the conclusion does too much summary work and not enough gesturing forward.
The following activity can help you identify problems with both paragraphs and check the alignment between the two.
The first part of this activity can be more effective with a partner who knows the assignment but who isn’t familiar with your paper, but you can do this with someone who doesn’t know the assignment, or you can do it for yourself as long as you have given yourself enough time to come back to your paper as a reader.
Part 1: Thesis and Content Work (done by a partner, ideally)
Use the highlighter feature in your word processor or an actual highlighter on paper to do the following (be sure to set up a key to the color-coding):
- Analyze the introduction:
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- Highlight the sentence you believe is the thesis statement.
- If there is more than one sentence that you believe could be the thesis or that you think need to be together to make the thesis, make a note of the issue.
- Analyze the conclusion:
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- Highlight/mark the restated thesis in the same color as you did the thesis in the introduction.
- Highlight/mark (in another color) any other sentences that seem to be summarizing the paper.
- Highlight/mark the gesture forward in a third color, and identify which approach you think the author is using in that gesture. Information about possible gestures appears in the conclusions section.
- Make note of any suggestions you have for strengthening the conclusion.
- Make a list of what you expect to see in the paper based just on the introduction and conclusion:
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- Add a few spaces between the introduction and the conclusion paragraphs.
- In the space you have created, make a list of the topics you expect the author to cover, based on what you see in the introduction and conclusion.
Part 2: Reviewing the Feedback (done by the author)
- Look at the highlighting of the thesis in your introduction. If the identified sentence was not what you thought your thesis was, think about whether and how to revise it so that it is clearer.
- Look at the highlighting of the restated thesis. If the identified sentence was not what you thought your restated thesis was, think about whether and how to revise it so that it is clearer.
- Compare the two statements of the thesis. Are they making essentially the same claim? Are they using distinct phrasing? You want both of these answers to be “yes.”
- Look at any additional summary that was highlighted in the conclusion. Try deleting that summary. Remember that the reader of a college-level paper is expecting a gesture forward, not a recap, unless the paper is long (more than about 2000 words).
- Look at the material marked as your gesture forward. Was this material identified in the way you had intended? If not, what could you do to make it clearer?
- Look at the list of topics that your partner thinks would be covered in this paper. Make note of any that differ from your actual organization. Significant differences could signal a need to return to global revision.
Once you have looked at all of these aspects of the feedback you have received, ask your partner about any of his/her feedback that you don’t understand. Then, write up notes on what, if anything, you are going to change and what you are not going to change based on this feedback.
Checking Paragraph-Level Transitions
During your revision process, you may have moved sentences and paragraphs around to make your meaning clearer. At this point, it is a good idea to check your transition sentences to make sure that they are conveying the logic and connections you want to make.
Remember that transition sentences almost always begin paragraphs, and they should make a gesture backward and a gesture forward so that your reader understands the connections between those paragraphs. While there may be a transition between your introduction and your first body paragraph, transition sentences are more important in later paragraphs, where you should be using them to help your reader see how the ideas in different paragraphs connect.
To make sure that your transition sentences are doing the work you want, do the following for each paragraph after the introduction:
- Identify the transition sentence. Remember that this will almost always be the first sentence of the paragraph.
- Check the gesture backward. Does the sentence give your reader some information that they already know from the previous paragraph(s)? It can sometimes help to highlight this part of the transition sentence to make sure that you can identify it. These parts may include the following:
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- Repeated words, phrases, or even clauses from the previous paragraph
- Transition words
- Summaries of ideas previously discussed
- A reminder of the thesis of the project or the main point of a section of the paper
- Look at the remainder of the transition sentence. Is it providing some kind of gesture forward or introduction to new information?
Key Points: Revising Paragraphs
- Strong paragraphs are focused, developed, and coherent. There are activities (explained in this chapter) that you can try to help you find weaknesses in these areas.
- Make sure that your introduction and conclusion are aligned and that your conclusion doesn’t waste time summarizing a paper shorter than about 2000 words.
- Check transition sentences by making sure that the first sentence in each paragraph after the introduction includes a reference to ideas already covered and an introduction to new ideas to be explained in the paragraph that includes the transition.
Text Attributions
“Color Coding Topics: A Strategy to Strengthen Focus” was revised with the help of James Bushard, a student in my class during Spring 2022, who also provided the examples, including the example in “Rainbow Paragraphs.”
“Mapping Paragraphs: A Strategy to Strengthen Logical Coherence” was revised with the help of Lorenzo Locks Azeredo, a student in my class during Spring 2022, who also provided the example. The map provided is my recreation of his map.
"Traditional Description Audio".
"Realistic Writing Process".
![A traditional description of the writing process moving from prewriting (with activities like identifying a topic, brainstorming, and locating sources) to drafting (developing a thesis and writing paragraphs) to revising (rethinking ideas) to editing and proofreading. These stages appear in a vertical list with one-way arrows indicating movement from one to stage to the next.](https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/34/2022/07/Process-Overview-1-e1672676975223-371x1024.png)
Writing has a trajectory. You begin with an assignment or a desire to write, and you end with a final product. The in-between parts vary substantially from person to person and even task to task, which means that you may have multiple processes. But the overall trajectory for writing tasks is similar enough that we can talk about it.
You may have seen diagrams of the process that look something like the one on the right. It’s a bit over simplified, but in general, the writing process has frequently been described in relatively linear terms as a movement from prewriting to drafting to revising to editing and proofreading.
You may also have heard that this process is recursive. This means that writers frequently go back to earlier stages when, for example, they discover a new idea that needs additional prewriting and drafting work before it can be incorporated in a revision. Sometimes such recursion will appear as arrows linking the stages in reverse.
Some models will include feedback from readers, usually in between the drafting and revising stage. Feedback at this stage usually helps writers refine their drafts and produce better revisions.
This image presents a relatively neat process, and it implies that if you just follow the steps, you’ll come out with a finished project. But the process is rarely this neat—or even neat at all.
Compare this with the model depicted in the image below. The trajectory stays the same (assignment to final version), but there can be a lot of variation as we move through the “stages” in between:
- Some writers like to get their ideas out on paper or screen quickly, folding prewriting into writing and revising.
- Some writers like to think long and hard about what they are going to write before ever touching the keyboard.
- Some writers like to write the perfect introduction before they do anything else.
- Some like to skip the introduction until the end of the first draft.
- Some want to read everything they are going to write about first; some want to read as they go.
None of these approaches is “right” or “wrong.”
![More realistic model of the writing process that includes separated "stages" that match the sections of the text. The stages are divided into early process (understanding the task and generating ideas), middle process (drafting structure, drafting text, and revising), and late process (editing and proofreading, treated separately). Down the right side, there is a stick figure with "feedback" in a speech bubble overhead repeated at each phase of the process. Linking nearly all of the elements in this diagram are double-ended arrows.](https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/34/2023/07/Process-Overview-2.png)
This text describes a writing process trajectory as represented in this image. At each “stage,” I present a range of techniques and strategies for that kind of work.
As you use this text, try focusing more on what you are trying to accomplish by writing instead of the order of the stages. While it is important to keep making progress on an assignment, it is actually more important to recognize, for example, whether you are ready to revise or whether you need to go back to the assignment itself to focus on your purpose.
With each of the strategies I suggest, your mileage may vary. My recommendation is that you try them with an open mind, particularly the ones that your instructor recommends. Be ready to consider approaches that have not worked for you in the past or that you have never tried. You might find something new that will help you write more successfully.
Procrastination
Economy vs. Copia
Before we get too far into “the process,” I want to think about general attitudes and habits toward writing.
Let's start with the “I hate writing” attitude that quite a few students have expressed to me over the years. If you hate writing now, I’m not going to promise that you’ll come out on the other side of this text or this course loving writing—or even necessarily hating it less. But I have designed this book to help you feel more comfortable with writing because you'll know more about how to succeed in the writing tasks that you’ll be given in college.
Even if you don't hate writing, you may have developed an attitude or habit around writing that is particularly harmful: economy in writing. Students are very busy people. Technically, if you are taking a full load of courses, you should be working more than forty hours a week on your academics. As a result, students tend to think that they should only write only to the minimum word count and then stop.
More than 40 hours?
According to federal regulation 34 CFR 600.2, a credit hour is defined as one hour of instruction plus two hours of work outside of instruction (Code). While there are adjustments and exceptions (for courses like labs), in short, this means that each credit hour requires three hours of work from you—generally one in the classroom with the instructor and two outside on your own.
I know this is a writing textbook, but let’s do a little math. If you are taking a 3-credit course, then, you should be putting in nine hours, and if you are taking a 4-credit course, you should be putting in twelve.
If you are taking five 3-credit courses (a typical full load in many institutions), you’re expected to put in 45 hours between class and preparation time.
If you are taking four 4-credit courses (again, a typical full load), you’re expected to put in 48 hours.
So, yes, really. More than 40 hours.
Students who write economically rarely produce more than a first draft. Remember what I said about one-night wonders? Those first drafts might be good enough, but they won’t be your best work. Not everything in our first drafts is really that good. In the process of writing this book, for example, I have probably thrown out nearly as many words as I have written—if not more.
In an economic approach, you end up turning in subpar work, keeping words you have produced just because you have produced them.
In copia (from Latin, meaning “abundance”), writers write a lot. They produce words freely, writing more than the assignment requires so that they can find the best 900 words in the 1500 that they have produced. When writers—including students—take this approach, we are able to produce better writing because we have more to choose from.
One key thing to know here is that copia doesn’t really take more time than economy. If you have ever written economically, think about how long you stared at a blank screen or piece of paper, agonizing over what to say and how to say it “right.” You probably didn’t save any time over jumping in and writing whatever you were thinking, even if those thoughts weren’t very coherent and didn’t quite fit into the project at hand.
If you had jumped in and started writing, you might have pushed your thinking into better territory faster, and some of what you wrote might have actually been good enough for your final version, even if you ended up throwing out a bunch of words.
If you have been an economic writer in the past, this might be a good moment for change.
Key Points: Thinking about Writing Process
- There is no single writing process.
- Your process is likely to be complex, but that's not a problem.
- You will never produce your best writing at the last minute.
- If you allow yourself to produce more words than you need for the assignment, you will have choices.
Writing is about choices. When we write, we are usually trying to communicate something to someone, even if we are only communicating with ourselves through our journals and grocery lists. More often, though, we are trying to communicate ideas and information to people who cannot read our minds. We know what we mean, but trying to make that meaning clear to another human being can be difficult, so we need to make choices about how best to convey our message.
About This Book
I have crafted Reading and Writing Successfully in College to help you improve your ability to make choices about writing specifically in an academic setting. There’s no formula for successful writing in every setting because writing situations are so variable, but there are strategies and techniques that you can practice. This text is designed to provide you with a range of approaches for you to try so that you can find the ones that work for you.
I’ve organized the book in four sections, designed to help you locate the strategies and techniques you need as you work on your assignments:
- Successful College Reading provides a guide for reading actively, including strategies for choosing where and when to read, annotating texts, and identifying main points. This section focuses on non-fiction texts because these make up the majority of what you will read in college.
- Writing as Intellectual Work helps you think about writing assignments as more than just a demonstration of your knowledge. Using a model of learning called “Bloom’s Taxonomy,” this section helps you figure out the kinds of thinking that your professor is looking for when they give you a writing assignment.
- Writing Process in College offers a range of techniques for managing the writing process, some of which may already be familiar and some of which may be new. I’m a big fan of leveraging technology to help us write more effectively, so a number of exercises rely on features in your word processor, but many of these same techniques can be done with paper and pen if you prefer.
- Writing with Sources focuses on how to find credible sources and use them well in academic writing. Here you’ll find guides for evaluating your sources, with a focus on internet sources, as well as information about summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and citing.
The writing choices you make will help others better understand your ideas and help you think and learn more effectively—and not only in college. I sincerely hope that you find this text useful in helping you make those choices.
Most of the ideas and activities in this book have been developed and refined through work with my students over nearly 30 years of teaching. During the last year, students have actively helped me with this book through an open pedagogy assignment. I asked students to work in groups to revise sections of this text: to change the language, make ideas clearer, define unfamiliar words, add visuals and examples, and generally to help me make this book more effective for you. Where they have given me permission, I have included their names, and I am grateful for their help. I plan to continue using this assignment, and I will include their work in future versions of this book.
About Me
When I first entered graduate school, I thought I was going to study postmodern novels, and I took a job teaching writing to pay for my tuition. But as my first semester of teaching progressed, I found myself much more interested in what was going on with my students than in the novels I was reading. And I was particularly fascinated by the scholarship in my composition theory and pedagogy course. So much to learn!
I have been learning about writing ever since. Nearly every semester of my academic career, I have taught first-year writing, and I know it sounds clichéd, but I learn so much from my students. My students have taught me to see them each as individuals with something of their own to say. They have taught me that no one strategy writing works for everyone, which has forced me to be agile in my suggestions and guidance. My students have also gifted me with ideas about using highlighters and the concepts of "rainbow paragraphs" and "final-ish drafts" (the drafts they submit for my feedback before revising them for portfolios).
In addition to teaching writing, I garden, knit, read, and play online puzzle games with one of my children and MMORPGs with my partner and another child (right now, it's classic World of Warcraft). I have fostered dogs in recent years, though I'm not doing that right now because my dog has gotten older and less tolerant—I'm not going to make him share our attention during his golden years. I enjoy and collect wooden jigsaw puzzles, both classic and modern.
When I was a child, I would come home from school and teach my younger sister everything that I had learned. She ended up skipping a grade as a result! It's no surprise that I became a teacher and landed in a career where I can have the first day of school twice a year. Thank you to my students and my colleagues for sharing this ride with me!
![](https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/34/2022/07/Good-Proofreading-Environment-scaled-1.jpg)
When I ask students about their proofreading strategies, they frequently tell me that they read over the paper before they hand it in. When I ask them how well that has worked for them in the past, they shrug. When I ask them to reread something they have handed in a while ago, they get embarrassed and sometimes even mad at themselves because they are seeing errors that they believe they should have caught. The problem, I tell them, is their proofreading strategy, and we get to work trying out alternatives.
In this section, I present a number of proofreading strategies that students have told me work for them. Not all of them work for me; not all of them will work for you. I recommend, though, that you try them, particularly some that you haven’t tried before. You might be able to find more error than you have in the past.
Proofreading vs. Editing
Editing and proofreading require different work, but both require attention to detail. Proofreading is about finding small errors, like typos or missing commas, while editing often involves more substantial work on sentence structure.
However, as I noted in the last section, proofreading and editing are not entirely separate. Be wary, though, of treating them as if they are the same task. If you start proofreading, but switch to editing a few rough sentences, be sure that you switch back to proofreading mode so that you don't miss the typos!
Hearing the Text: Strategies for Good Ears
Some people can hear problems in their writing much more easily than they can see them, so these variations all rely on you being able to hear what you have written. The strategies below tend to work better when you are able to make marks on a hard copy of your paper, so I recommend that you print your paper out, no matter which you try.
- If you are good at reading out loud exactly what you have written—mistakes and all—you can try reading out loud to yourself. Make corrections as you go, or leave marks (highlighting, underlines, circles) to make corrections later.
- You can ask a friend to read your text out loud to you. This will work best with someone who hasn’t worked with you on other revisions, so they don’t know in advance what you mean. This time, you want to mark places where your reader stumbles or has to back up to read a sentence, as well as places where one or the other of you sees errors. This strategy often works best with two hard copies, one for you and one for your partner.
- You can have your computer read the text out loud to you (see “Tech Talk,” below). Keep in mind that a computer won’t stumble or back up. It also won’t stop until you tell it to. You’ll need to be ready to use some quick-marking techniques if you use this strategy.
Most word-processing software and operating systems have methods for turning text into speech. Microsoft Word® has a "Read Aloud" feature on the Review tab. Google Docs™ has an option to turn on speech under "Accessibility Options" in the Tools menu. Windows® includes a "Narrator" feature in the Ease of Access tools. Apple® computers include a speech option in the Accessibility section of the System Preferences menu.
By the time you read this, however, these options may have changed, and specific instructions may vary for the version of software and/or browser that you are using.
If you'd like to try computer reading and these instructions don't work, search online for specific instructions for your system and software.
Seeing the Text: Strategies for Good Eyes
Some people see error better than they can hear it. However, finding error this way works better when we change the way the text looks. You can then proofread using your screen or a hard copy, whichever works better for you.
- Change the size or typeface of the font you are using. Changing font types and sizes changes where the beginnings and endings of lines appear, which means that you’re more likely to see errors.
- Most word processors default to using a sans serif font; try a serif font or a different typeface.
- Make the entire text 18-point or even larger.
- Shrink your window size so that you can only see a few lines at a time. This can help you focus on the words in those lines instead of the flow of the paragraph.
- Make every sentence into a separate paragraph (see the activity below).
- This approach can work well in conjunction with shrinking your window size, since each sentence will be separated from the ones around it.
- For an added bonus, this approach can also help you see when you have sentences that begin the same way or too many sentences of the same length in a row.
- It can also help you find dropped quotations.
Example: Changing Font Size
Compare these two versions:
The first sample was done in Calibri, the default font in Microsoft Word®, though I made the point size 14 so that it would be a little more readable.
In the second sample, you can better see errors. I changed the size font to 20, as well as set the font to Comic Sans to better read the work. As you can see, you can better see I mistyped “proofread” and I'm now able to fix that.
Serif vs. Sans Serif
Serif fonts have little decorative strokes on the letters. Examples of serif fonts include Times New Roman, Palatino, and Garamond. These fonts tend to work better in print than on screen for most readers.
Sans Serif fonts have no such decorations. Examples of sans serif fonts include Arial (the default font for Google Docs™) and Calibri (the default font for Microsoft Word®).
First, a few cautions:
- As of this writing, this doesn’t work in Google Docs, so the instructions below are for Microsoft Word only. If you are using Word on a Mac, you will need to use the Advanced Find and Replace.
- Follow these instructions carefully. If you misplace or forget a period, it can be hard to put your paper back in essay format. Some students opt to do this on a copy of their paper, using the spaced-out version to make notes about changes, but making the changes on the original version.
- If you are doing this on the original copy of your paper, be sure to double-check it after you have completed your revisions and converted your paper back to essay format. You want to be sure that your paragraphs are all as they should be.
- Do not try to fix your Works Cited or References list with this technique. This process makes a mess of that list.
Step 1: Convert Your Paper
Open your paper in Word, and take the following steps:
- Click on the "Replace" button on the right side of the Home tab.
- In the dialog box that opens, type the following:
- In the "Find what" blank: Type a period and a space.
- In the "Replace with" blank: Type a period, a caret (Shift-6), the letter "p", another caret (Shift-6), and another letter "p."
Note: If you have trouble with the ^p^p part, choose "More" (which becomes "Less" when you click on it) and then "Special" and then "Paragraph Mark" twice. Make sure your cursor is in the "Replace with" blank before you click on the "Paragraph Mark."
- Click "Replace All."
Step 2: Edit and Proofread
Using this version, do your editing and proofreading work. Be careful as you edit. Try not to add periods or spaces between sentences, which can also make returning your paper to essay format more difficult.
Step 3: Put Your Paper Back in Regular Format
Assuming you are doing your edits on the same copy you intend to use, you can put it back in regular paragraph form. You just need to reverse the search:
- Click on the "Replace" button on the right side of the Home tab.
- In the dialog box that opens, type the following:
- "Find what:" Type a period, a caret (Shift-6), the letter "p", another caret (Shift-6), and another letter "p."
- "Replace with:" Type a period and a space.
Again: If you have trouble with the ^p^p part, choose "More" (which becomes "Less" when you click on it) and then "Special" and then "Paragraph Mark" twice. Make sure your cursor is in the "Find what:" blank before you click on the "Paragraph Mark."
- Click "Replace All." Once your paper is back in essay format, double-check to make sure that all of your paragraphs return to the way you want them.
Moving: Strategies for Kinesthetic Writers
Some people think better when they are moving around or when they are moving things around. If this describes you, try these strategies.
- Pace. Get a clipboard, print out your paper, and walk around while you read. Make notes or marks for later changes as you go.
- Print out your paper and cut it up so that you only have one paragraph to work with at a time. Tape together paragraphs that bridge pages. Then pick a paragraph, and start marking it up. For some added benefit, choose paragraphs at random so that the ideas are always moving around, too.
Checking Details
Sometimes, we know where the trouble spots are. We know that we have particular problems with commas or an author’s name or there/their/they’re. It can be helpful to create a checklist for yourself of specific things to look for. For many of these, you can leverage your word processor’s search function to locate the problem spots more efficiently.
Here are some common trouble spots.
Author’s names
Some authors have names that show up as misspellings, so it’s easy to skip over those red squiggles in your word processor. One trick is to add the correct spelling to your word processor’s dictionary so that it will only mark the ones that are truly misspelled.
Commas
Commas are a confusing mark of punctuation for many people, and comma splices are one of the most common errors for early college writers.
If you struggle with commas, first, become familiar with the most important comma rules. Tons of sites online have this information; don’t worry about the number of rules they list, just choose a reputable one like the Purdue OWL or other university website. Then, you can search for commas and carefully proofread to make sure that the ones you have are in the correct place. You'll have to read carefully, though, to add the ones you're missing. If you aren’t sure, check with a tutor, your professor, or a friend who seems to understand commas well.
Commas splices happen because writers know that the ideas in two independent clauses belong closer together than an “and” can bring them, but they aren’t sure about how to do this grammatically. Here is a comma splice:
“Solar winds are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, these winds can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
When you have a pair of clauses like this, the comma isn’t strong enough to hold these ideas together—or splice them. To fix this error, you can do a number of things:
Join them with a coordinating conjunction.
“Solar winds are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, and these winds can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
This solution doesn’t work particularly well because the “and” makes the two parts feel too separated.
Use subordination to turn one of the clauses into a dependent clause.
“Solar winds, which are charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
OR
“Solar winds, which disrupt satellites and power grids, are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun. “
This solution is better in this case, but the one you choose would depend on what you want to emphasize.
Turn one of the independent clauses into a phrase, in this case, one that modifies “solar winds.”
“Solar winds, charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
OR
“Solar winds, disrupters of satellites and power grids, are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun.”
Again, this solution is better, and you would make a choice depending on what you want to emphasize.
Turn the sentences into a simple sentence with a compound verb.
“Solar winds are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun and can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
Again, this one is better than the original. Because it depends on coordination, you would be giving equal emphasis to the two parts.
I have provided a handful of solutions here, but there are many more. The point is for you to understand that when you run into a comma splice, you will want to think actively about how to create the emphasis you want in your sentence.
Quotations
Double-check your quotations. Keep in mind that everything inside of quotation marks (with a few minor exceptions) needs to be exactly what is in the original text. Errors in quotations can indicate a kind of carelessness, particularly since these kinds of errors are avoidable. When you are checking your quotations, it is also a good time to check that you have the correct citation information.
Just as there are specific rules for commas, there are specific rules for quotation marks, but these are simpler:
- Periods and commas go inside quotation marks. This is true even if they aren’t part of the original sentence.
- Question marks, semicolons, and all other punctuation marks can go either inside or outside, depending on whether they are part of your sentence or part of the sentence you are quoting. If they are part of your sentence, they go outside. If they are part of the original sentence, they go inside.
- Citations do not belong inside of quotation marks. They are your marks about where the source is located; they are not part of the original.
If you search for quotation marks, you can find these easily.
Key Points: Proofreading
- Do not just "read over" your writing. Choose a proofreading technique that works for you, such as reading aloud, changing the text's appearance, or moving while you proofread.
- Check for specific details, including the spelling of authors' names and comma usage. Also check that everything inside of quotation marks is exactly what's in the original and that you have used punctuation around quotation marks correctly.
Text Attribution
Material in this section was revised with the help of Waldy Baez, Ameir Mahmoud, and Latrell Williams, students in my class during Fall 2022.
Media Attribution
"Good Proofreading Environment" by Waldy Baez, Ameir Mahmoud, and Latrell Williams is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The original photograph was cropped slightly by Patricia Lynne.
The idea for "Change Text Size" came from work by Waldy Baez, Ameir Mahmoud, and Latrell Williams. The original file would not display correctly, so Patricia Lynne has redone the work. Credit should be given to both the original student contribution and, if copied, to my work, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The text in this chapter is broken up by images and various text boxes in an effort to make the text more readable to some neurodivergent readers. The result, frankly, is more engaging for all learners, and more work like this needs to be done throughout the book. This page was one worked on by students in an open pedagogy assignment. More information is available in the credits at the bottom.
![](https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/34/2022/07/Good-Proofreading-Environment-scaled-1.jpg)
When I ask students about their proofreading strategies, they frequently tell me that they read over the paper before they hand it in. When I ask them how well that has worked for them in the past, they shrug. When I ask them to reread something they have handed in a while ago, they get embarrassed and sometimes even mad at themselves because they are seeing errors that they believe they should have caught. The problem, I tell them, is their proofreading strategy, and we get to work trying out alternatives.
In this section, I present a number of proofreading strategies that students have told me work for them. Not all of them work for me; not all of them will work for you. I recommend, though, that you try them, particularly some that you haven’t tried before. You might be able to find more error than you have in the past.
Proofreading vs. Editing
Editing and proofreading require different work, but both require attention to detail. Proofreading is about finding small errors, like typos or missing commas, while editing often involves more substantial work on sentence structure.
However, as I noted in the last section, proofreading and editing are not entirely separate. Be wary, though, of treating them as if they are the same task. If you start proofreading, but switch to editing a few rough sentences, be sure that you switch back to proofreading mode so that you don't miss the typos!
Hearing the Text: Strategies for Good Ears
Some people can hear problems in their writing much more easily than they can see them, so these variations all rely on you being able to hear what you have written. The strategies below tend to work better when you are able to make marks on a hard copy of your paper, so I recommend that you print your paper out, no matter which you try.
- If you are good at reading out loud exactly what you have written—mistakes and all—you can try reading out loud to yourself. Make corrections as you go, or leave marks (highlighting, underlines, circles) to make corrections later.
- You can ask a friend to read your text out loud to you. This will work best with someone who hasn’t worked with you on other revisions, so they don’t know in advance what you mean. This time, you want to mark places where your reader stumbles or has to back up to read a sentence, as well as places where one or the other of you sees errors. This strategy often works best with two hard copies, one for you and one for your partner.
- You can have your computer read the text out loud to you (see “Tech Talk,” below). Keep in mind that a computer won’t stumble or back up. It also won’t stop until you tell it to. You’ll need to be ready to use some quick-marking techniques if you use this strategy.
Most word-processing software and operating systems have methods for turning text into speech. Microsoft Word® has a "Read Aloud" feature on the Review tab. Google Docs™ has an option to turn on speech under "Accessibility Options" in the Tools menu. Windows® includes a "Narrator" feature in the Ease of Access tools. Apple® computers include a speech option in the Accessibility section of the System Preferences menu.
By the time you read this, however, these options may have changed, and specific instructions may vary for the version of software and/or browser that you are using.
If you'd like to try computer reading and these instructions don't work, search online for specific instructions for your system and software.
Seeing the Text: Strategies for Good Eyes
Some people see error better than they can hear it. However, finding error this way works better when we change the way the text looks. You can then proofread using your screen or a hard copy, whichever works better for you.
- Change the size or typeface of the font you are using. Changing font types and sizes changes where the beginnings and endings of lines appear, which means that you’re more likely to see errors.
- Most word processors default to using a sans serif font; try a serif font or a different typeface.
- Make the entire text 18-point or even larger.
- Shrink your window size so that you can only see a few lines at a time. This can help you focus on the words in those lines instead of the flow of the paragraph.
- Make every sentence into a separate paragraph (see the activity below).
- This approach can work well in conjunction with shrinking your window size, since each sentence will be separated from the ones around it.
- For an added bonus, this approach can also help you see when you have sentences that begin the same way or too many sentences of the same length in a row.
- It can also help you find dropped quotations.
Example: Changing Font Size
Compare these two versions:
The first sample was done in Calibri, the default font in Microsoft Word®, though I made the point size 14 so that it would be a little more readable.
In the second sample, you can better see errors. I changed the size font to 20, as well as set the font to Comic Sans to better read the work. As you can see, you can better see I mistyped “proofread” and I'm now able to fix that.
Serif vs. Sans Serif
Serif fonts have little decorative strokes on the letters. Examples of serif fonts include Times New Roman, Palatino, and Garamond. These fonts tend to work better in print than on screen for most readers.
Sans Serif fonts have no such decorations. Examples of sans serif fonts include Arial (the default font for Google Docs™) and Calibri (the default font for Microsoft Word®).
First, a few cautions:
- As of this writing, this doesn’t work in Google Docs, so the instructions below are for Microsoft Word only. If you are using Word on a Mac, you will need to use the Advanced Find and Replace.
- Follow these instructions carefully. If you misplace or forget a period, it can be hard to put your paper back in essay format. Some students opt to do this on a copy of their paper, using the spaced-out version to make notes about changes, but making the changes on the original version.
- If you are doing this on the original copy of your paper, be sure to double-check it after you have completed your revisions and converted your paper back to essay format. You want to be sure that your paragraphs are all as they should be.
- Do not try to fix your Works Cited or References list with this technique. This process makes a mess of that list.
Step 1: Convert Your Paper
Open your paper in Word, and take the following steps:
- Click on the "Replace" button on the right side of the Home tab.
- In the dialog box that opens, type the following:
- In the "Find what" blank: Type a period and a space.
- In the "Replace with" blank: Type a period, a caret (Shift-6), the letter "p", another caret (Shift-6), and another letter "p."
Note: If you have trouble with the ^p^p part, choose "More" (which becomes "Less" when you click on it) and then "Special" and then "Paragraph Mark" twice. Make sure your cursor is in the "Replace with" blank before you click on the "Paragraph Mark."
- Click "Replace All."
Step 2: Edit and Proofread
Using this version, do your editing and proofreading work. Be careful as you edit. Try not to add periods or spaces between sentences, which can also make returning your paper to essay format more difficult.
Step 3: Put Your Paper Back in Regular Format
Assuming you are doing your edits on the same copy you intend to use, you can put it back in regular paragraph form. You just need to reverse the search:
- Click on the "Replace" button on the right side of the Home tab.
- In the dialog box that opens, type the following:
- "Find what:" Type a period, a caret (Shift-6), the letter "p", another caret (Shift-6), and another letter "p."
- "Replace with:" Type a period and a space.
Again: If you have trouble with the ^p^p part, choose "More" (which becomes "Less" when you click on it) and then "Special" and then "Paragraph Mark" twice. Make sure your cursor is in the "Find what:" blank before you click on the "Paragraph Mark."
- Click "Replace All." Once your paper is back in essay format, double-check to make sure that all of your paragraphs return to the way you want them.
Moving: Strategies for Kinesthetic Writers
Some people think better when they are moving around or when they are moving things around. If this describes you, try these strategies.
- Pace. Get a clipboard, print out your paper, and walk around while you read. Make notes or marks for later changes as you go.
- Print out your paper and cut it up so that you only have one paragraph to work with at a time. Tape together paragraphs that bridge pages. Then pick a paragraph, and start marking it up. For some added benefit, choose paragraphs at random so that the ideas are always moving around, too.
Checking Details
Sometimes, we know where the trouble spots are. We know that we have particular problems with commas or an author’s name or there/their/they’re. It can be helpful to create a checklist for yourself of specific things to look for. For many of these, you can leverage your word processor’s search function to locate the problem spots more efficiently.
Here are some common trouble spots.
Author’s names
Some authors have names that show up as misspellings, so it’s easy to skip over those red squiggles in your word processor. One trick is to add the correct spelling to your word processor’s dictionary so that it will only mark the ones that are truly misspelled.
Commas
Commas are a confusing mark of punctuation for many people, and comma splices are one of the most common errors for early college writers.
If you struggle with commas, first, become familiar with the most important comma rules. Tons of sites online have this information; don’t worry about the number of rules they list, just choose a reputable one like the Purdue OWL or other university website. Then, you can search for commas and carefully proofread to make sure that the ones you have are in the correct place. You'll have to read carefully, though, to add the ones you're missing. If you aren’t sure, check with a tutor, your professor, or a friend who seems to understand commas well.
Commas splices happen because writers know that the ideas in two independent clauses belong closer together than an “and” can bring them, but they aren’t sure about how to do this grammatically. Here is a comma splice:
“Solar winds are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, these winds can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
When you have a pair of clauses like this, the comma isn’t strong enough to hold these ideas together—or splice them. To fix this error, you can do a number of things:
Join them with a coordinating conjunction.
“Solar winds are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, and these winds can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
This solution doesn’t work particularly well because the “and” makes the two parts feel too separated.
Use subordination to turn one of the clauses into a dependent clause.
“Solar winds, which are charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
OR
“Solar winds, which disrupt satellites and power grids, are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun. “
This solution is better in this case, but the one you choose would depend on what you want to emphasize.
Turn one of the independent clauses into a phrase, in this case, one that modifies “solar winds.”
“Solar winds, charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun, can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
OR
“Solar winds, disrupters of satellites and power grids, are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun.”
Again, this solution is better, and you would make a choice depending on what you want to emphasize.
Turn the sentences into a simple sentence with a compound verb.
“Solar winds are made up of charged particles originating from the Earth’s Sun and can disrupt satellites and power grids.”
Again, this one is better than the original. Because it depends on coordination, you would be giving equal emphasis to the two parts.
I have provided a handful of solutions here, but there are many more. The point is for you to understand that when you run into a comma splice, you will want to think actively about how to create the emphasis you want in your sentence.
Quotations
Double-check your quotations. Keep in mind that everything inside of quotation marks (with a few minor exceptions) needs to be exactly what is in the original text. Errors in quotations can indicate a kind of carelessness, particularly since these kinds of errors are avoidable. When you are checking your quotations, it is also a good time to check that you have the correct citation information.
Just as there are specific rules for commas, there are specific rules for quotation marks, but these are simpler:
- Periods and commas go inside quotation marks. This is true even if they aren’t part of the original sentence.
- Question marks, semicolons, and all other punctuation marks can go either inside or outside, depending on whether they are part of your sentence or part of the sentence you are quoting. If they are part of your sentence, they go outside. If they are part of the original sentence, they go inside.
- Citations do not belong inside of quotation marks. They are your marks about where the source is located; they are not part of the original.
If you search for quotation marks, you can find these easily.
Key Points: Proofreading
- Do not just "read over" your writing. Choose a proofreading technique that works for you, such as reading aloud, changing the text's appearance, or moving while you proofread.
- Check for specific details, including the spelling of authors' names and comma usage. Also check that everything inside of quotation marks is exactly what's in the original and that you have used punctuation around quotation marks correctly.
Text Attribution
Material in this section was revised with the help of Waldy Baez, Ameir Mahmoud, and Latrell Williams, students in my class during Fall 2022.
Media Attribution
"Good Proofreading Environment" by Waldy Baez, Ameir Mahmoud, and Latrell Williams is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The original photograph was cropped slightly by Patricia Lynne.
The idea for "Change Text Size" came from work by Waldy Baez, Ameir Mahmoud, and Latrell Williams. The original file would not display correctly, so Patricia Lynne has redone the work. Credit should be given to both the original student contribution and, if copied, to my work, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Paraphrasing is taking the ideas from a source and putting them in your own words. You won’t always be able or want to quote a source word-for-word, and paraphrasing is a way to relay the author’s ideas to your audience without relying on their actual language.
This skill is critical for your academic success. First, learning to paraphrase will help you better understand what you are reading. Moreover, some disciplines only use quotations rarely—and some not at all. In most academic writing, you’ll use paraphrasing more than quoting, and frankly, if you quote, you usually need to include a paraphrase anyway.
Using a Two-Part Process
First, you need to understand the passage. Of course, you need to understand the text as a whole, but to paraphrase well, you also have to make sure that you understand more precisely the ideas in the passage you want to reference. Careful reading will help you do this.
The second part is putting the passage in your own words, frequently the more difficult part. It is not enough to substitute a few synonyms—even really good ones—to paraphrase well. Instead, you have to both alter the vocabulary where possible and avoid using the same sentence structure.
Let’s unpack that a bit.
- Alter the vocabulary. To alter the vocabulary, you need to use different words to describe the author’s point except where the specific words are necessary. Specific words to hang onto would mostly be technical language: the word itself is the most appropriate word because it is the most accurate. (Usually, this applies to nouns, but it can also apply to verbs and less frequently to adjectives and adverbs.) If the technical terms are really long or uncommon phrases, sometimes it makes sense to quote those, just so your reader knows that the phrasing comes from the author. If the words aren’t technical, you should be looking for other language.
- Change the sentence structure. Ultimately, your sentence should not look like the original, even when you are using some of the technical language. If your reader were to read the two sentences side-by-side, they should be able to see the same idea, but not the same way of phrasing that idea.
How to do this?
To write a strong paraphrase, try the following steps:
- Make sure that you understand the passage.
- Close the book or put away the article.
- Do something else for five or ten minutes—perhaps work on the rest of the paragraph.
- Without looking back at the original text, write your paraphrase. Go ahead and add it directly to the paragraph you are working on. But DON’T look at the text again until you are ready to check your paraphrase.
- Check your paraphrase against the original both to make sure your paraphrase is accurate and to make sure that you haven't written a paraphrase that is too close to the original.
Another trick I sometimes use is imagining that I am having to explain the idea in the passage to one of my sisters. Both of them are smart people, but neither of them has the kind of detailed knowledge of the topics I write about. So, I start writing my explanation to one of them. I have to put it in relatively plain language to start, but this also helps me confirm my understanding. And those explanations can produce some pretty solid paraphrases.
Here’s an example of a paraphrase that keeps the ideas in the original source, but not the language. Notice that the paraphrase also includes citation.
Original Text
“The average cost in 2017 to install solar systems ranged from a little over $2,000 per kilowatt (kilowatts are a measure of power capacity) for large-scale systems to almost $3,700 for residential systems. A new natural gas plant might have costs around $1,000/kW. Wind comes in around $1,200 to $1,700/kw.”
Paraphrase
Though ultimately making the case that long-term savings outweigh initial costs, the Union of Concerned Scientists points out that it costs between $2000 and $3700 per kilowatt to install different types of solar systems and between $1200 and $1700 to install wind systems. Solar and wind systems might be better environmentally, but big companies think about the money spent, especially when natural gas plants are only $1000 per kilowatt (Union).
Source
Union of Concerned Scientists. “Barriers to Renewable Energy Technologies.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 6 June 2014, www.ucsusa.org/resources/barriers-renewable-energy-technologies.
When a writer paraphrases by relying too heavily on the existing sentence structure and vocabulary of the original, this is called “patchwriting.” Patchwriting can be considered a form of plagiarism because the writer takes the wording of someone else and claims it as their own.
Patchwriting most commonly occurs when writers keep their sources open in front of them as they write a paraphrase. It can also happen when writers memorize passages or try to write paraphrases too soon after they have put away the text. Readers are influenced not just by the ideas of writers, but also by the words that authors use to explain those ideas.
As you practice paraphrasing, you will get better at it, and it can become an excellent way to improve your understanding of difficult material. In the meantime, put your sources away, and if you find yourself patchwriting anyway, try paraphrasing your patchwriting. Every time you do it, you should find yourself a little further away from the original text.
Key Points: Paraphrasing
- Good paraphrasing keeps the author's idea, but changes both the words used by the author and the sentence structure.
- If you struggle with paraphrasing, you can get better by following a few steps: make sure you understand the passage, close the source and do something else for a little while, and then write your paraphrase without looking back at the source.
- Once you have written your paraphrase, check it against the original to make sure that you have captured the idea without relying too heavily on the language and sentence structure of the original.
- You can add short quotations to paraphrases, particularly of technical terms.
- Patchwriting, attempts at paraphrasing that stick too close to the original text, can be considered a form of plagiarism. Don't look at the text when you write a paraphrase!
Text Attribution
This chapter was revised with the help of Lando Concepcion and Jude Ejiofor, students in my class during Spring 2022. Jude also provided the example of good paraphrasing.
While making global revisions, you have probably also worked on revising paragraphs to clarify your point or add more explanation. That work is important, but the strategies in this section are designed to help you make sure that your individual paragraphs are solid by looking at the specific qualities of good paragraphs: focus, development, and coherence. These can be particularly useful for paragraphs that don't seem to be working well.
Color Coding Topics: A Strategy to Strengthen Focus
A focused paragraph has one main idea that usually appears in a topic sentence (at least in academic writing), and the rest of the paragraph elaborates on that idea. If your paragraph isn’t focused, your reader may struggle to follow your point and the connections among the ideas in your paragraph.
This activity works on body paragraphs, but not really on introductions or conclusions. As with previous activities, you can do this with the highlighter feature in your word processor or with actual highlighters on a printed copy of your paper.
Part 1: Highlighting
- Identify the paragraph’s topic sentence and highlight it in one color.
- Look at the next sentence (or the first sentence in the paragraph if the topic sentence isn't the first sentence), and decide if it’s on the same topic. If it is, highlight it in the same color. If it isn't, highlight it in a different color.
- Continue highlighting this way, matching the highlight color to the sentence topic, until all of the sentences in the paragraph are marked. Note that you can have split sentences (sentences that have more than one topic in them). In those cases, highlight the parts of the sentence in different colors accordingly.
Part 2: Analyzing Your Highlighting
- If your paragraph is all one color, then you have a well-focused paragraph.
- If your paragraph contains two colors, it’s probably fine. Paragraphs can shift focus sometimes, so a paragraph that has two colors may still work as a single paragraph. Look carefully at the topics to make sure that they are connected and that you haven’t dropped in a new topic in that really belongs in a different paragraph.
- If your paragraph has three or more colors, you probably need to think about separating the topics.
- I frequently see this problem when the writer starts a paragraph on one idea, realizes that they need to explain a specific point before getting into the original topic, and then shifts back to the first topic, with an additional shift in topic later in the paragraph. Often, that second topic can be pulled out and developed into a new paragraph that is placed before the current one.
- This can also happen when the paragraph is very long and simply isn’t broken into chunks to make reading easier. Look for those moments when the colors shift, which can indicate good places for paragraph breaks. The new paragraphs might also need a little development (see the next strategy).
Example: Color-Coded Paragraphs
Here are some examples of paragraphs with one, two, and three colors.
Example 1
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
While the paragraph above is relatively short, every sentence ties in with one another. Of course, the paragraph could use more work, but the paragraph is well focused.
Example 2
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. By the time people become adults, they tend to forget how and why this is, causing them to simply state that they don’t know when children ask. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
This is an example of a paragraph that shifts focus but sticks with the main point. While this one probably doesn’t need to be broken up (though it could benefit from some reorganization), you can have a paragraph that has two colors where the different sentences shift focus drastically. Such a paragraph would need to be broken up.
Example 3
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. But did you know that in California, the sky has sometimes turned orange due to fires? Residents couldn’t even leave their homes, even if the sky looked hauntingly beautiful. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. By the time people become adults, they tend to forget how and why this is, causing them to simply state that they don’t know when children ask. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
While this paragraph has mostly the same focus points as the previous example, look at the blue section. These two sentences would work better as a topic sentence in a new paragraph due to the focus shifting away from the sky being blue to the sky being orange in California.
Occasionally, multiple colors in the same paragraph indicate a larger problem with topic organization throughout the paper. When this happens, the same topics appear in small clumps throughout the paper. One of my former students called these “rainbow paragraphs.”
As you can see in the example below, there’s a glaring issue with the focus of the paragraph. While the yellow and green sentences could work together, the other three colors would work best as their own paragraphs.
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. But did you know that in California, the sky has sometimes turned orange due to fires? Residents couldn’t even leave their homes, even if the sky looked hauntingly beautiful. A great way to learn about major fires is the news. Time and again, forest fires in the United States are shown on the news. People who have done gender reveal parties have recently been responsible for fires. These parties tend to involve fireworks or other explosives, and the people handling them don’t think of taking any precautions.
Rainbow paragraphs are really a global-level revision problem rather than a paragraph-level revision problem, and you can find them by doing a more complete version of this focus activity.
If you suspect you have a rainbow paragraph problem, create a key where you color code different topics in your paper, and then highlight according to that key. You can then gather all of the sentences that deal with each topic to work together in one or more paragraphs.
Revisiting the Evidence/Explanation Balance: A Strategy to Strengthen Development
A paragraph that is sufficiently developed has enough evidence and enough explanation, with “enough” being defined mostly by the reader. You can use the same kind of highlighting activity that you did for your entire paper to make sure that you are balancing evidence and explanation at the paragraph level, too. This strategy can help you identify paragraphs with too little evidence or too little explanation.
In the case of too little evidence, you may find that you thought your reader would already understand your point. To you, the point seems obvious, but keep in mind that your reader has not been working with the evidence that you have. Show them the source material that supports your ideas.
In the case of too little explanation, students commonly try to let the evidence speak for itself. But, as I said earlier, evidence itself is neutral. Evidence exists out in the world and doesn’t mean anything until we start interpreting and explaining it. You need to provide your reader with some of that explanation.
This activity can help when you have a paragraph that you believe is out of balance (something you might have noticed if you did the full project evidence/explanation balance activity).
Part 1: Highlighting
Using the highlighting feature in your word processor or actual highlighters on print versions, do the following:
- Highlight or otherwise mark all the supporting evidence in the your paragraph.
-
- From textual sources, this would include quotations and paraphrases, facts, examples, and background information. Include the attributive tags and citations in these highlights.
- You can also do this with evidence from personal experience and observations or data that you have personally collected. These would be evidence in projects that don’t rely heavily on published sources.
- Using a different color, highlight or otherwise mark differently all of the explanations of that evidence that you have provided. This material should all be coming from your own ideas.
- Be sure that you have highlighted every sentence in the body of your paragraph. Note: You may have sentences that are part evidence and part explanation. That is perfectly fine.
Part 2: Analyzing Your Balance
Your focus here is a bit different from the earlier balancing activity where you examined the balance in your entire paper. Here you are looking for large-ish blocks of one color or the other in a single paragraph, usually three or more sentences. Those blocks are potential problem spots.
- Blocks of evidence can indicate the need for more explanation. While sometimes you will spend the majority of a paragraph providing a summary or an extended example from a source, much more often, you will want to present a little evidence (perhaps a sentence or two) and then explain how that evidence relates to your thesis or your point in that paragraph.
- Blocks of explanation can indicate the need for more evidence. Work through your sentences and determine whether a skeptical reader (one who doesn’t automatically agree with you) would be inclined to ask “How do you know?” If you find any of those moments, look for evidence you can bring in to support your point.
Don’t assume that you need to make a change every time you have one of these blocks, particularly when the blocks are explaining one of your points. Sometimes, these larger blocks are necessary.
Mapping Paragraphs: A Strategy to Strengthen Logical Coherence
A coherent paragraph holds together logically and stylistically; the ideas flow from sentence to sentence so that the reader can understand the author’s line of thought. Stylistic coherence is discussed in the editing section, but logical coherence is a paragraph-level matter.
When a paragraph coheres, it holds together topically—like a focused paragraph does—but its sentences logically lead your reader, step-by-step, through your thinking.
The activity below can pick up problems with focus as well as coherence, so if you don’t have substantial difficulties with focus, this activity might be a better choice for you. Also, unlike the focus activity, this one works on all paragraphs, including introductions and conclusions.
This activity can work well when you have a paragraph that feels jumbled or jumpy. It may be all on the same topic (so it may pass the focus test), but it still isn’t connecting well from point to point.
This exercise can be done on a computer, but it is probably easier to draw the map on a piece of paper.
Here, I'll use an example paragraph:
(1) The technology barrier is what humanity will need to work on. (2) Even if we could convince everyone to pay the enormous prices of installation and switch to clean energy, we still would not have the technology to support this substantial change. (3) Nevshehir states that the technology that we have today is still expensive and not powerful enough compared with what fossil fuels deliver. (4) Fossil fuels have one major advantage over renewable resources: Oil-based fuels are stable and predictable. (5) On the other hand, solar and wind electricity production can vary, which can leave people’s homes vulnerable to energy shortages. (6) Moradiya brings another barrier into the technology issue when he states “Although the development of a coal plant requires about $6 per megawatt, it is known that wind and solar power plants also required high investment. In addition to this, storage systems of the generated energy are expensive and represent a challenge in terms of megawatt production.” (7) In these sentences, Moradiya shows that in addition to the costs of installing the power generators (e.g., solar panels and wind turbines), the costs to store excess energy can be a major hurdle, since the technology that we have today makes large batteries that could sustain cities expensive.
Works Cited
Moradiya, Meet A. “The Challenges Renewable Energy Sources Face.” AZoCleantech, 11 Jan. 2019, www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=836.
Nevshehir, Noel. “These Are the Biggest Hurdles On The Path to Clean Energy.” World Economic Forum, 19 Feb. 2021, www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/heres-why-geopolitics-could-hamper-the-energy-transition/.
Part 1: Create the Map
- Number all the sentences in your paragraph. Notice that sentences in a quotation are considered all part of one sentence (sentence 6 in the example).
- For each sentence after the first one, draw lines to indicate which sentence that one logically follows from. Looking at the topic of each sentence can help.
-
- Use solid lines to indicate a clear logical connection between sentences.
- Use dashed/dotted lines to indicate a connection that isn’t as clear or strong as it could be.
- It is possible that a sentence may connect to more than one sentence.
- Sentences that are disconnected from all of the others in the paragraph should have no lines.
To the right, you'll see a map of the paragraph above. In this map, sentence 1 is only loosely connected to 2. Sentences 2 and 3 are solidly connected and sentences 6 and 7 are solidly connected to each other and to sentence 3. Sentences 4 and 5, however, are connected to each other, but not to the rest of the map.
Part 2: Analyze the Map
Once you have created the map, you can use it to identify and correct trouble spots.
- Here are some of the most common problems:
- Sentences that aren’t connected to any others in paragraph (sentences 4 and 5 in the diagram). These usually indicate a sentence or group of sentences that belong in another paragraph. I see this most frequently with transition sentences that appear at the end of a paragraph instead of the beginning of the next. I also see this with ideas that need more explanation, sometimes in a separate paragraph.
- Sentences connected by dashed/dotted lines (sentences 1 and 2 in the diagram). These sentences probably belong together, but the logic between isn’t as clear as it needs to be for the reader to follow. These connections can often be strengthened by adding a little more explanation to one of the two sentences—or sometimes in a sentence between them.
- Sentences whose connection jumps over sentences (sentences 3 and 6 in the diagram, which skip over sentences 4 and 5). Usually, this means that the sentences are out of order. Try moving the sentences so that those that are connected on your map are next to each other. You may have to adjust the wording of the sentences, including transitions, as you do this.
- Not everything in a map is necessarily a problem:
- A single sentence with multiple sentences connected to it (sentence 3 in the diagram). This probably indicates an important sentence for helping your reader understand the relationships among the ideas in your paragraph. Usually, these don’t need any revision—at least not because of this.
- A late sentence that comes back to an early sentence in your paragraph (not seen in this diagram). This is often a way of either wrapping up an explanation and making the connection clear to your reader or starting a new explanation from a key central sentence in the paragraph. Usually, these don’t need any revision.
- Long chains of sentences in the same paragraph (not seen in this diagram). These may be a problem if your paragraph is very long. Look at whether one or more of those chains should be turned into a separate paragraph.
Checking Introductions and Conclusions
Whether we draft our introductions first, last, or somewhere in the middle, we are often at a different place in our thinking when we draft our conclusions. As a result, sometimes the ideas in the two paragraphs don’t align.
Also, sometimes a conclusion sounds more like an introduction. When I ask students to do the mixed-up paragraph exercise, about 20% of the students in any given class end up with the introduction and conclusion switched. This usually happens when the conclusion does too much summary work and not enough gesturing forward.
The following activity can help you identify problems with both paragraphs and check the alignment between the two.
The first part of this activity can be more effective with a partner who knows the assignment but who isn’t familiar with your paper, but you can do this with someone who doesn’t know the assignment, or you can do it for yourself as long as you have given yourself enough time to come back to your paper as a reader.
Part 1: Thesis and Content Work (done by a partner, ideally)
Use the highlighter feature in your word processor or an actual highlighter on paper to do the following (be sure to set up a key to the color-coding):
- Analyze the introduction:
-
- Highlight the sentence you believe is the thesis statement.
- If there is more than one sentence that you believe could be the thesis or that you think need to be together to make the thesis, make a note of the issue.
- Analyze the conclusion:
-
- Highlight/mark the restated thesis in the same color as you did the thesis in the introduction.
- Highlight/mark (in another color) any other sentences that seem to be summarizing the paper.
- Highlight/mark the gesture forward in a third color, and identify which approach you think the author is using in that gesture. Information about possible gestures appears in the conclusions section.
- Make note of any suggestions you have for strengthening the conclusion.
- Make a list of what you expect to see in the paper based just on the introduction and conclusion:
-
- Add a few spaces between the introduction and the conclusion paragraphs.
- In the space you have created, make a list of the topics you expect the author to cover, based on what you see in the introduction and conclusion.
Part 2: Reviewing the Feedback (done by the author)
- Look at the highlighting of the thesis in your introduction. If the identified sentence was not what you thought your thesis was, think about whether and how to revise it so that it is clearer.
- Look at the highlighting of the restated thesis. If the identified sentence was not what you thought your restated thesis was, think about whether and how to revise it so that it is clearer.
- Compare the two statements of the thesis. Are they making essentially the same claim? Are they using distinct phrasing? You want both of these answers to be "yes."
- Look at any additional summary that was highlighted in the conclusion. Try deleting that summary. Remember that the reader of a college-level paper is expecting a gesture forward, not a recap, unless the paper is long (more than about 2000 words).
- Look at the material marked as your gesture forward. Was this material identified in the way you had intended? If not, what could you do to make it clearer?
- Look at the list of topics that your partner thinks would be covered in this paper. Make note of any that differ from your actual organization. Significant differences could signal a need to return to global revision.
Once you have looked at all of these aspects of the feedback you have received, ask your partner about any of his/her feedback that you don't understand. Then, write up notes on what, if anything, you are going to change and what you are not going to change based on this feedback.
Checking Paragraph-Level Transitions
During your revision process, you may have moved sentences and paragraphs around to make your meaning clearer. At this point, it is a good idea to check your transition sentences to make sure that they are conveying the logic and connections you want to make.
Remember that transition sentences almost always begin paragraphs, and they should make a gesture backward and a gesture forward so that your reader understands the connections between those paragraphs. While there may be a transition between your introduction and your first body paragraph, transition sentences are more important in later paragraphs, where you should be using them to help your reader see how the ideas in different paragraphs connect.
To make sure that your transition sentences are doing the work you want, do the following for each paragraph after the introduction:
- Identify the transition sentence. Remember that this will almost always be the first sentence of the paragraph.
- Check the gesture backward. Does the sentence give your reader some information that they already know from the previous paragraph(s)? It can sometimes help to highlight this part of the transition sentence to make sure that you can identify it. These parts may include the following:
-
- Repeated words, phrases, or even clauses from the previous paragraph
- Transition words
- Summaries of ideas previously discussed
- A reminder of the thesis of the project or the main point of a section of the paper
- Look at the remainder of the transition sentence. Is it providing some kind of gesture forward or introduction to new information?
Key Points: Revising Paragraphs
- Strong paragraphs are focused, developed, and coherent. There are activities (explained in this chapter) that you can try to help you find weaknesses in these areas.
- Make sure that your introduction and conclusion are aligned and that your conclusion doesn't waste time summarizing a paper shorter than about 2000 words.
- Check transition sentences by making sure that the first sentence in each paragraph after the introduction includes a reference to ideas already covered and an introduction to new ideas to be explained in the paragraph that includes the transition.
Text Attributions
"Color Coding Topics: A Strategy to Strengthen Focus" was revised with the help of James Bushard, a student in my class during Spring 2022, who also provided the examples, including the example in "Rainbow Paragraphs."
"Mapping Paragraphs: A Strategy to Strengthen Logical Coherence" was revised with the help of Lorenzo Locks Azeredo, a student in my class during Spring 2022, who also provided the example. The map provided is my recreation of his map.
While making global revisions, you have probably also worked on revising paragraphs to clarify your point or add more explanation. That work is important, but the strategies in this section are designed to help you make sure that your individual paragraphs are solid by looking at the specific qualities of good paragraphs: focus, development, and coherence. These can be particularly useful for paragraphs that don't seem to be working well.
Color Coding Topics: A Strategy to Strengthen Focus
A focused paragraph has one main idea that usually appears in a topic sentence (at least in academic writing), and the rest of the paragraph elaborates on that idea. If your paragraph isn’t focused, your reader may struggle to follow your point and the connections among the ideas in your paragraph.
Epcot Center
This activity works on body paragraphs, but not really on introductions or conclusions. As with previous activities, you can do this with the highlighter feature in your word processor or with actual highlighters on a printed copy of your paper.
Part 1: Highlighting
- Identify the paragraph’s topic sentence and highlight it in one color.
- Look at the next sentence (or the first sentence in the paragraph if the topic sentence isn't the first sentence), and decide if it’s on the same topic. If it is, highlight it in the same color. If it isn't, highlight it in a different color.
- Continue highlighting this way, matching the highlight color to the sentence topic, until all of the sentences in the paragraph are marked. Note that you can have split sentences (sentences that have more than one topic in them). In those cases, highlight the parts of the sentence in different colors accordingly.
Part 2: Analyzing Your Highlighting
- If your paragraph is all one color, then you have a well-focused paragraph.
- If your paragraph contains two colors, it’s probably fine. Paragraphs can shift focus sometimes, so a paragraph that has two colors may still work as a single paragraph. Look carefully at the topics to make sure that they are connected and that you haven’t dropped in a new topic in that really belongs in a different paragraph.
- If your paragraph has three or more colors, you probably need to think about separating the topics.
- I frequently see this problem when the writer starts a paragraph on one idea, realizes that they need to explain a specific point before getting into the original topic, and then shifts back to the first topic, with an additional shift in topic later in the paragraph. Often, that second topic can be pulled out and developed into a new paragraph that is placed before the current one.
- This can also happen when the paragraph is very long and simply isn’t broken into chunks to make reading easier. Look for those moments when the colors shift, which can indicate good places for paragraph breaks. The new paragraphs might also need a little development (see the next strategy).
Epcot Center
This activity works on body paragraphs, but not really on introductions or conclusions. As with previous activities, you can do this with the highlighter feature in your word processor or with actual highlighters on a printed copy of your paper.
Part 1: Highlighting
- Identify the paragraph’s topic sentence and highlight it in one color.
- Look at the next sentence (or the first sentence in the paragraph if the topic sentence isn't the first sentence), and decide if it’s on the same topic. If it is, highlight it in the same color. If it isn't, highlight it in a different color.
- Continue highlighting this way, matching the highlight color to the sentence topic, until all of the sentences in the paragraph are marked. Note that you can have split sentences (sentences that have more than one topic in them). In those cases, highlight the parts of the sentence in different colors accordingly.
Part 2: Analyzing Your Highlighting
- If your paragraph is all one color, then you have a well-focused paragraph.
- If your paragraph contains two colors, it’s probably fine. Paragraphs can shift focus sometimes, so a paragraph that has two colors may still work as a single paragraph. Look carefully at the topics to make sure that they are connected and that you haven’t dropped in a new topic in that really belongs in a different paragraph.
- If your paragraph has three or more colors, you probably need to think about separating the topics.
- I frequently see this problem when the writer starts a paragraph on one idea, realizes that they need to explain a specific point before getting into the original topic, and then shifts back to the first topic, with an additional shift in topic later in the paragraph. Often, that second topic can be pulled out and developed into a new paragraph that is placed before the current one.
- This can also happen when the paragraph is very long and simply isn’t broken into chunks to make reading easier. Look for those moments when the colors shift, which can indicate good places for paragraph breaks. The new paragraphs might also need a little development (see the next strategy).
Example: Color-Coded Paragraphs
Here are some examples of paragraphs with one, two, and three colors.
Example 1
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
While the paragraph above is relatively short, every sentence ties in with one another. Of course, the paragraph could use more work, but the paragraph is well focused.
Example 2
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. By the time people become adults, they tend to forget how and why this is, causing them to simply state that they don’t know when children ask. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
This is an example of a paragraph that shifts focus but sticks with the main point. While this one probably doesn’t need to be broken up (though it could benefit from some reorganization), you can have a paragraph that has two colors where the different sentences shift focus drastically. Such a paragraph would need to be broken up.
Example 3
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. But did you know that in California, the sky has sometimes turned orange due to fires? Residents couldn’t even leave their homes, even if the sky looked hauntingly beautiful. The reason why the sky is the color we see is because of how the light bounces, causing us to see a light blue instead of red. By the time people become adults, they tend to forget how and why this is, causing them to simply state that they don’t know when children ask. The light blue we see is also very beautiful, and an activity that some people enjoy doing is looking up at the sky.
While this paragraph has mostly the same focus points as the previous example, look at the blue section. These two sentences would work better as a topic sentence in a new paragraph due to the focus shifting away from the sky being blue to the sky being orange in California.
Occasionally, multiple colors in the same paragraph indicate a larger problem with topic organization throughout the paper. When this happens, the same topics appear in small clumps throughout the paper. One of my former students called these “rainbow paragraphs.”
As you can see in the example below, there’s a glaring issue with the focus of the paragraph. While the yellow and green sentences could work together, the other three colors would work best as their own paragraphs.
If you look up at the sky, you’ll notice it’s blue during the day. A question that children often ask adults is why this is. However, not many people can come up with an answer, even if they’re taught in school. But did you know that in California, the sky has sometimes turned orange due to fires? Residents couldn’t even leave their homes, even if the sky looked hauntingly beautiful. A great way to learn about major fires is the news. Time and again, forest fires in the United States are shown on the news. People who have done gender reveal parties have recently been responsible for fires. These parties tend to involve fireworks or other explosives, and the people handling them don’t think of taking any precautions.
Rainbow paragraphs are really a global-level revision problem rather than a paragraph-level revision problem, and you can find them by doing a more complete version of this focus activity.
If you suspect you have a rainbow paragraph problem, create a key where you color code different topics in your paper, and then highlight according to that key. You can then gather all of the sentences that deal with each topic to work together in one or more paragraphs.
Revisiting the Evidence/Explanation Balance: A Strategy to Strengthen Development
A paragraph that is sufficiently developed has enough evidence and enough explanation, with “enough” being defined mostly by the reader. You can use the same kind of highlighting activity that you did for your entire paper to make sure that you are balancing evidence and explanation at the paragraph level, too. This strategy can help you identify paragraphs with too little evidence or too little explanation.
In the case of too little evidence, you may find that you thought your reader would already understand your point. To you, the point seems obvious, but keep in mind that your reader has not been working with the evidence that you have. Show them the source material that supports your ideas.
In the case of too little explanation, students commonly try to let the evidence speak for itself. But, as I said earlier, evidence itself is neutral. Evidence exists out in the world and doesn’t mean anything until we start interpreting and explaining it. You need to provide your reader with some of that explanation.
This activity can help when you have a paragraph that you believe is out of balance (something you might have noticed if you did the full project evidence/explanation balance activity).
Part 1: Highlighting
Using the highlighting feature in your word processor or actual highlighters on print versions, do the following:
- Highlight or otherwise mark all the supporting evidence in the your paragraph.
-
- From textual sources, this would include quotations and paraphrases, facts, examples, and background information. Include the attributive tags and citations in these highlights.
- You can also do this with evidence from personal experience and observations or data that you have personally collected. These would be evidence in projects that don’t rely heavily on published sources.
- Using a different color, highlight or otherwise mark differently all of the explanations of that evidence that you have provided. This material should all be coming from your own ideas.
- Be sure that you have highlighted every sentence in the body of your paragraph. Note: You may have sentences that are part evidence and part explanation. That is perfectly fine.
Part 2: Analyzing Your Balance
Your focus here is a bit different from the earlier balancing activity where you examined the balance in your entire paper. Here you are looking for large-ish blocks of one color or the other in a single paragraph, usually three or more sentences. Those blocks are potential problem spots.
- Blocks of evidence can indicate the need for more explanation. While sometimes you will spend the majority of a paragraph providing a summary or an extended example from a source, much more often, you will want to present a little evidence (perhaps a sentence or two) and then explain how that evidence relates to your thesis or your point in that paragraph.
- Blocks of explanation can indicate the need for more evidence. Work through your sentences and determine whether a skeptical reader (one who doesn’t automatically agree with you) would be inclined to ask “How do you know?” If you find any of those moments, look for evidence you can bring in to support your point.
Don’t assume that you need to make a change every time you have one of these blocks, particularly when the blocks are explaining one of your points. Sometimes, these larger blocks are necessary.
Mapping Paragraphs: A Strategy to Strengthen Logical Coherence
A coherent paragraph holds together logically and stylistically; the ideas flow from sentence to sentence so that the reader can understand the author’s line of thought. Stylistic coherence is discussed in the editing section, but logical coherence is a paragraph-level matter.
When a paragraph coheres, it holds together topically—like a focused paragraph does—but its sentences logically lead your reader, step-by-step, through your thinking.
The activity below can pick up problems with focus as well as coherence, so if you don’t have substantial difficulties with focus, this activity might be a better choice for you. Also, unlike the focus activity, this one works on all paragraphs, including introductions and conclusions.
This activity can work well when you have a paragraph that feels jumbled or jumpy. It may be all on the same topic (so it may pass the focus test), but it still isn’t connecting well from point to point.
This exercise can be done on a computer, but it is probably easier to draw the map on a piece of paper.
Here, I'll use an example paragraph:
(1) The technology barrier is what humanity will need to work on. (2) Even if we could convince everyone to pay the enormous prices of installation and switch to clean energy, we still would not have the technology to support this substantial change. (3) Nevshehir states that the technology that we have today is still expensive and not powerful enough compared with what fossil fuels deliver. (4) Fossil fuels have one major advantage over renewable resources: Oil-based fuels are stable and predictable. (5) On the other hand, solar and wind electricity production can vary, which can leave people’s homes vulnerable to energy shortages. (6) Moradiya brings another barrier into the technology issue when he states “Although the development of a coal plant requires about $6 per megawatt, it is known that wind and solar power plants also required high investment. In addition to this, storage systems of the generated energy are expensive and represent a challenge in terms of megawatt production.” (7) In these sentences, Moradiya shows that in addition to the costs of installing the power generators (e.g., solar panels and wind turbines), the costs to store excess energy can be a major hurdle, since the technology that we have today makes large batteries that could sustain cities expensive.
Works Cited
Moradiya, Meet A. “The Challenges Renewable Energy Sources Face.” AZoCleantech, 11 Jan. 2019, www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=836.
Nevshehir, Noel. “These Are the Biggest Hurdles On The Path to Clean Energy.” World Economic Forum, 19 Feb. 2021, www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/heres-why-geopolitics-could-hamper-the-energy-transition/.
Part 1: Create the Map
- Number all the sentences in your paragraph. Notice that sentences in a quotation are considered all part of one sentence (sentence 6 in the example).
- For each sentence after the first one, draw lines to indicate which sentence that one logically follows from. Looking at the topic of each sentence can help.
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- Use solid lines to indicate a clear logical connection between sentences.
- Use dashed/dotted lines to indicate a connection that isn’t as clear or strong as it could be.
- It is possible that a sentence may connect to more than one sentence.
- Sentences that are disconnected from all of the others in the paragraph should have no lines.
To the right, you'll see a map of the paragraph above. In this map, sentence 1 is only loosely connected to 2. Sentences 2 and 3 are solidly connected and sentences 6 and 7 are solidly connected to each other and to sentence 3. Sentences 4 and 5, however, are connected to each other, but not to the rest of the map.
Part 2: Analyze the Map
Once you have created the map, you can use it to identify and correct trouble spots.
- Here are some of the most common problems:
- Sentences that aren’t connected to any others in paragraph (sentences 4 and 5 in the diagram). These usually indicate a sentence or group of sentences that belong in another paragraph. I see this most frequently with transition sentences that appear at the end of a paragraph instead of the beginning of the next. I also see this with ideas that need more explanation, sometimes in a separate paragraph.
- Sentences connected by dashed/dotted lines (sentences 1 and 2 in the diagram). These sentences probably belong together, but the logic between isn’t as clear as it needs to be for the reader to follow. These connections can often be strengthened by adding a little more explanation to one of the two sentences—or sometimes in a sentence between them.
- Sentences whose connection jumps over sentences (sentences 3 and 6 in the diagram, which skip over sentences 4 and 5). Usually, this means that the sentences are out of order. Try moving the sentences so that those that are connected on your map are next to each other. You may have to adjust the wording of the sentences, including transitions, as you do this.
- Not everything in a map is necessarily a problem:
- A single sentence with multiple sentences connected to it (sentence 3 in the diagram). This probably indicates an important sentence for helping your reader understand the relationships among the ideas in your paragraph. Usually, these don’t need any revision—at least not because of this.
- A late sentence that comes back to an early sentence in your paragraph (not seen in this diagram). This is often a way of either wrapping up an explanation and making the connection clear to your reader or starting a new explanation from a key central sentence in the paragraph. Usually, these don’t need any revision.
- Long chains of sentences in the same paragraph (not seen in this diagram). These may be a problem if your paragraph is very long. Look at whether one or more of those chains should be turned into a separate paragraph.
Checking Introductions and Conclusions
Whether we draft our introductions first, last, or somewhere in the middle, we are often at a different place in our thinking when we draft our conclusions. As a result, sometimes the ideas in the two paragraphs don’t align.
Also, sometimes a conclusion sounds more like an introduction. When I ask students to do the mixed-up paragraph exercise, about 20% of the students in any given class end up with the introduction and conclusion switched. This usually happens when the conclusion does too much summary work and not enough gesturing forward.
The following activity can help you identify problems with both paragraphs and check the alignment between the two.
The first part of this activity can be more effective with a partner who knows the assignment but who isn’t familiar with your paper, but you can do this with someone who doesn’t know the assignment, or you can do it for yourself as long as you have given yourself enough time to come back to your paper as a reader.
Part 1: Thesis and Content Work (done by a partner, ideally)
Use the highlighter feature in your word processor or an actual highlighter on paper to do the following (be sure to set up a key to the color-coding):
- Analyze the introduction:
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- Highlight the sentence you believe is the thesis statement.
- If there is more than one sentence that you believe could be the thesis or that you think need to be together to make the thesis, make a note of the issue.
- Analyze the conclusion:
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- Highlight/mark the restated thesis in the same color as you did the thesis in the introduction.
- Highlight/mark (in another color) any other sentences that seem to be summarizing the paper.
- Highlight/mark the gesture forward in a third color, and identify which approach you think the author is using in that gesture. Information about possible gestures appears in the conclusions section.
- Make note of any suggestions you have for strengthening the conclusion.
- Make a list of what you expect to see in the paper based just on the introduction and conclusion:
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- Add a few spaces between the introduction and the conclusion paragraphs.
- In the space you have created, make a list of the topics you expect the author to cover, based on what you see in the introduction and conclusion.
Part 2: Reviewing the Feedback (done by the author)
- Look at the highlighting of the thesis in your introduction. If the identified sentence was not what you thought your thesis was, think about whether and how to revise it so that it is clearer.
- Look at the highlighting of the restated thesis. If the identified sentence was not what you thought your restated thesis was, think about whether and how to revise it so that it is clearer.
- Compare the two statements of the thesis. Are they making essentially the same claim? Are they using distinct phrasing? You want both of these answers to be "yes."
- Look at any additional summary that was highlighted in the conclusion. Try deleting that summary. Remember that the reader of a college-level paper is expecting a gesture forward, not a recap, unless the paper is long (more than about 2000 words).
- Look at the material marked as your gesture forward. Was this material identified in the way you had intended? If not, what could you do to make it clearer?
- Look at the list of topics that your partner thinks would be covered in this paper. Make note of any that differ from your actual organization. Significant differences could signal a need to return to global revision.
Once you have looked at all of these aspects of the feedback you have received, ask your partner about any of his/her feedback that you don't understand. Then, write up notes on what, if anything, you are going to change and what you are not going to change based on this feedback.
Checking Paragraph-Level Transitions
During your revision process, you may have moved sentences and paragraphs around to make your meaning clearer. At this point, it is a good idea to check your transition sentences to make sure that they are conveying the logic and connections you want to make.
Remember that transition sentences almost always begin paragraphs, and they should make a gesture backward and a gesture forward so that your reader understands the connections between those paragraphs. While there may be a transition between your introduction and your first body paragraph, transition sentences are more important in later paragraphs, where you should be using them to help your reader see how the ideas in different paragraphs connect.
To make sure that your transition sentences are doing the work you want, do the following for each paragraph after the introduction:
- Identify the transition sentence. Remember that this will almost always be the first sentence of the paragraph.
- Check the gesture backward. Does the sentence give your reader some information that they already know from the previous paragraph(s)? It can sometimes help to highlight this part of the transition sentence to make sure that you can identify it. These parts may include the following:
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- Repeated words, phrases, or even clauses from the previous paragraph
- Transition words
- Summaries of ideas previously discussed
- A reminder of the thesis of the project or the main point of a section of the paper
- Look at the remainder of the transition sentence. Is it providing some kind of gesture forward or introduction to new information?
Key Points: Revising Paragraphs
- Strong paragraphs are focused, developed, and coherent. There are activities (explained in this chapter) that you can try to help you find weaknesses in these areas.
- Make sure that your introduction and conclusion are aligned and that your conclusion doesn't waste time summarizing a paper shorter than about 2000 words.
- Check transition sentences by making sure that the first sentence in each paragraph after the introduction includes a reference to ideas already covered and an introduction to new ideas to be explained in the paragraph that includes the transition.
Text Attributions
"Color Coding Topics: A Strategy to Strengthen Focus" was revised with the help of James Bushard, a student in my class during Spring 2022, who also provided the examples, including the example in "Rainbow Paragraphs."
"Mapping Paragraphs: A Strategy to Strengthen Logical Coherence" was revised with the help of Lorenzo Locks Azeredo, a student in my class during Spring 2022, who also provided the example. The map provided is my recreation of his map.