essay rewriting

essay rewriting

The Importance of Essay Rewriting

1. The Benefits of Essay Rewriting

One more reason for rewriting an assignment is that it could help the student to detect their own mistakes. It is obvious that no one will write an assignment without making any mistakes. By rewriting an assignment, the student is able to see and understand the mistakes that they have made because they have to read and go through the assignment several times. This is supported by Oshima and Hogue, the more times you read your rough draft, the more confident you will become in your ability to spot and correct mistakes (Oshima and Hogue, 2006). With this ability, the student can learn from their mistakes and avoid them in the future. Rewriting an assignment can also prevent the student from getting low marks. Chumbley and Yorke emphasized that the ability to monitor what one is doing, reviewing and checking one’s work, and maintaining a good effort until the task is successfully completed are characteristics of a successful student (Chumbley and Yorke, 1997). It is clear that the students will try to improve their assignment in order to get a better mark, and it is also an opportunity for the student to find out more information in creating the best content for the assignment.

Moreover, another important benefit of rewriting an essay is that it can improve the student’s memory. By rewriting an assignment, the student is more likely to remember the material as they have looked into the material several times. According to Cheryl Wright, by using this repetitive practice, students are more likely to store the information in a form that is easy to retrieve and able to use the information in the examination or practical. This is because the students have understood the material and translated the information using their own words (Cheryl Wright, 2003). This benefit is asserted by Mohler and Benson, rewriting and rereading can increase memory by going over information frequently and allowing it to be embedded into memory. Memory improvement can lead to a higher understanding of a topic and better exam results.

2. Techniques for Effective Essay Rewriting

Learning how to make an organized sentence-by-sentence translation of the problematic prompt, students can present data, analysis, and information in a more focused, relevant, and coherent manner. They apply all the skills needed to produce the rough draft of their revised content and, in doing so, they will have critically evaluated the original and formulated their revised version based on a deep understanding of what is being asked, resulting in a stronger final product. It’s important to recognize that to make a successful revision of any type of written work, we necessarily have to read it a few times, analyze it, and recognize its strengths and weaknesses. Step-by-step analysis of the reconstructed sentences will lead to better communication with the readers. Students will expand, substantiate, and clarify the points conveyed in the original version. This particularly pertinent information is pertinent to research writing, as students will be developing their logic and persuasion skills in an explanatory but argumentative manner. By identifying the types of sentences that they are revising, students will formulate useful knowledge in the manipulation of structure and organization of various ideas.

An effective strategy for differentiation of instruction can begin with having students restate a problematic prompt in language that they feel more comfortable with. Making use of an online translator, paraphrasing activities, and vocabulary lists, they can, in essence, prepare a rough draft response that is a first step toward accomplishing the successful completion of a finished product. This same process can be applied in preparing an outline for the problematic prompt. Using alternative words, breaking down complex sentences/phrases, and giving examples, students can successfully prepare an annotation of the prompt. This is extremely important in evidence-based writing, where students will be utilizing any type of informational text to develop a clear statement of the information’s support for their opinion and conveying the information to the reader in a clear and concise manner. These techniques provide the foundation of what is expected from students in the production of their revised content.

3. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Essay Rewriting

2. Failure to rewrite globally. The previous point leads us to the next mistake, which is failure to rewrite globally. Any effective writing strategy involves taking the big picture into account. Unfortunately, when burdened by the disappointment of an imperfect first draft, it may be difficult to see beyond the trees to the forest as a whole. Focusing victories in the minutiae may make a writer feel like they are accomplishing something, but generally, it will not be sufficient to remedy larger problems within the essay. Each sentence is a building block, and the redevelopment of each can be an inefficient method of repairing the essay’s structure. Rewriting a thesis and topic sentences then continuously referring back to them can be an effective way to stay on track while rewriting from a global perspective. Remaining mindful of the overall essay during the rewriting process will require a certain measure of dispassion towards the previous draft. This brings us to the third common mistake, which is reluctance to rewrite with change.

1. Avoiding errors altogether. As we have explained, rewriting is a vital part of the writing process. Attempting to write a perfect essay in one sitting is a formula for failure. We have all made the mistake of diving headfirst into an essay only to find ourselves with a finished product that does not meet our original expectations. Unfortunately, even planning ahead does not guarantee a well-written essay nor does an intelligible thesis promise organization. Writing is a process of trial and error, and the error often comes not in the initial writing, but in the rewriting. Those most committed to avoiding errors are often the same individuals who fail to rewrite from scratch. They spend too much time polishing long-winded sentences or trying to force a muddled thesis into a clearer state. Thus, rewriting often feels like an act of futility, and those who are unhappy with their writing may fall into the trap of “spinning their wheels,” expending countless hours in hopes of polishing a draft that may be fundamentally flawed. This is not to say that error-free writing is not attainable, but for many writers, constantly obsessing over grammatical errors and sentence style is a hindrance to the creative process of rewriting and, ultimately, the successful communication of ideas.

4. Strategies for Improving Clarity and Coherence in Rewritten Essays

The presence of an essay plan, which may have evolved during the pre-writing taking into account new information, should be carefully checked during the rewriting process. The plan is expected to change, but if changes are made, they must be conscious decisions. Awareness of a desired conclusion can serve as a reversing heuristic – if something doesn’t lead towards the conclusion, be whether it’s still relevant. Controlled rewriting may involve further information gathering, as information typically drives out the question to which it is the answer, and that in turn may lead to a change of thrust. Another part of the plan may be to identify arguments and to reflect on their validity; watch the pronouns – do not later change to another question by addressing a different it that. Step back from the detail and look for a picture of the essay, taking care not to let a global picture supplant the detail. Consider how the reader will approach the given piece and take steps to counter any assumptions that may affect his reading.

Specific suggestions for improving clarity and coherence during rewriting are offered here. One general aspect of coherence is repetition – writing about the same issue in several places. In early drafts, this may be a way of working out what you want to say; look for this in the rewriting and make sure that everything that belongs together is brought together, and that needless repetition is avoided. Keeping the same issue (or a linking issue) in mind constrains the rootless writer. A useful heuristic for checking on coherence is to see if you can underline the subject of each paragraph (or of each section); if you have an essay plan, this should give you a starting point.

5. The Role of Proofreading and Editing in Essay Rewriting

It is clearly something of a misnomer to call machine proofreading and editing “artificial intelligence”. This methodology is not much more intelligent than the student who uses it. But, in the hands of an experienced human being, the role of machine preparation is of supreme importance. We have seen how essay rewriting involves various attempts to understand or change the words and meanings of a work. And we have mentioned target features and tests which identify errors and infelicities in expression. Proofreading and editing can be used to locate these errors and, in some cases, automatically stamp them out. The first step in machine proofreading is formal verification that the text which has been obtained by some process of generation or conversion, satisfies the specified target features. If it does not, an attempt must be made to modify it until the features are satisfied or the meaning is changed to one which is less committal. In the latter case a test, which we shall call a test of unintended change is required to indicate the nature of the infelicity. This procedure can be regarded as an attempt to produce a partial inverse to the conversion or generation process. If the latter is too difficult to attempt, an alternative method for obtaining a text with the required features, may be used as coding. In each case, automatic identification of errors in the text requires that it be post-processed in some way to identify the errors, infelicities and unintended changes. This often involves the use of a tagged or marked up version of the text, which we have seen, created a big business in machine translation. Finally a corrected or improved text may be employed to update the source from which it was obtained, with the expectation that the text transformation process may have to be revisited.