Revise, edit and proofread

Revising

Revising is about checking the overall structure and coherence of your work, and making sure the contents are relevant to the topic.

First of all, you should read your work from start to finish, to help you think about the structure of the argument. You might find that you want to move paragraphs or sections to a different place to make the argument flow better.

This is also when you should check that each paragraph helps answer the question and contains some critical analysis.

Ask yourself:

• Have I answered the question?
• Is there a coherent and logical argument?
• Does it stay focused on the topic?
• Is it structured to help guide the reader smoothly through your argument?
• Are the introduction and conclusion clear and focused?

Reverse outlining technique

To make revising easier, we recommend the “reverse outlining” technique.

Write the main idea from each paragraph in a numbered list (or on separate sticky notes). Look at the list you have created and check for repetition, coherence, relevance, and whether the ideas are in a logical order. If they are not, rearrange or remove ideas until you reach a structure that makes most sense to you. You can then adjust your written work to match the new structure.

Editing

Editing is about checking for sense and accuracy. It is a positive rather than a destructive process, as you are perfecting what you have already written. While the revising stage focused on the overall structure and flow of your work, editing focuses on clarity, conciseness and sentence structure.

When you edit your work, ask yourself:

• Is it clear and readable?
• Does it stay within any word counts?
• Are my sentences in a logical order?
• Have I used signposting vocabulary to show the structure of my argument?
• Have I used the correct academic voice and tenses?

If you are finding it difficult to stay within the word count, look for: 

• sentences which repeat the ideas of previous sentences – these can be deleted; 
• phrases which can be expressed in a more concise way, for example you could use “to” instead of “in order to”; and
• sentences that you can change from the passive voice to the active voice.  “The dog chased the cat” uses fewer words than “The cat was chased by the dog”.  

There are many tools and apps which offer editing features, such as rewriting sentences to make them sound more formal or “academic”. You should not use these to automatically rewrite your work for you, as this goes against the Proof Reading Policy and would mean you have not done the work yourself. If you use tools or apps, including generative AI (if you are allowed), you should always think carefully about whether their suggestions are appropriate for the style of assessment you are working on and for the message you want to convey. Sometimes these apps can suggest vocabulary or phrasing that are not relevant to academic writing or to a UK audience, so don’t assume that they are always right.