The Final Steps

Lesson Plan - Get It!

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Revising and editing is an ongoing task from the time you write your rough draft.

This task is beneficial for more than one reason — it improves your paper, eliminates errors, and allows you to learn from your mistakes. Editing refers to content, while proofreading refers to grammar and mechanics.

Before beginning this process, it's important to be aware of all the requirements for the paper. Review any guidelines and instructions you received, and when in doubt, ask your instructor for clarification.

If an evaluation sheet is provided, review that as well to ensure you have met all of the requirements. Review the evaluation sheet for this paper, found in Downloadable Resources in the right-hand sidebar: Research Paper Evaluation Sheet.

Learn the basics of both proofreading and editing with Steps for Revising Your Paper.

An Essay Revision Checklist is helpful while editing and revising.

While you need to revise and edit your paper, having another set of eyes look over it is also helpful. This step is typically called peer editing.

This Self-Editing Checklist for College Writers is helpful for both self editing and peer review. Ask a peer to use this list as they read through your paper. Use it yourself to do your own evaluation as well.

• What categories of errors do the checklists mention?
• Which of these types of errors do you think you make most frequently?
• How are these tools useful in evaluating your own written work?

Another thing to check before turning in your final copy is your formatting. For this particular paper, MLA formatting is required.

Follow the specific instructions for MLA General Format throughout your paper.

The very last page of your research paper is the works cited page. Fortunately, you completed much of this work when you created source cards in Related Lesson three of this series on preliminary research (right-hand sidebar).

To create the works cited page, you transfer the information from the source cards to a document on the computer.Follow the MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format.

Viewing an MLA Sample Works Cited Page may also be helpful.

Before turning in that final draft, practice a few of the editing and revising skills in the Got It? section.