B301: Rewriting Assignments

Policy on Rewriting
So you've decided to rewrite your paper...

The first three papers may be rewritten, provided that they are rewritten within a week of being received back. As the second and third papers are group papers, they may not be rewritten as individual papers. We will read one and only one rewritten paper from each group, although the entire group need not work on the paper. If the grade on the paper improves, only those students who participated in rewriting will receive the higher grade. While the grade on a rewritten paper may not go up, it will never go down.

If you choose to rewrite an assignment, you should talk to the teacher who assessed your assignment the first time to see how best to improve it.

Some people see rewriting as a mechanical chore, correcting the mistakes the "editor" has discovered. But if you want to rewrite successfully, you'll need to do more than this. Remember: The lower the grade on the paper, the more rewriting and reworking you will need to do to raise the grade. So you need to do a number of things to rewrite successfully.

1. Read all the comments. Now when you've written a good paper, some of those comments will be a kind of "conversation" with you. Not all comments are criticism! But a comment that begins with "you didn't" or "you need to" or a question tells you that you haven't done something that you should have. When a teacher writes a question, this is sometimes a way of saying that you've said something that is incorrect or sometimes a way of saying that you need to offer evidence or explanation for what you say. A comment that tells you to "rethink" something suggests that the whole way you've gone about doing something is problematic (but not necessarily wrong--perhaps just inadequate). Feel free to ask for further explanation in a face-to-face discussion of your paper. Comments are generally a more important guide to the problems of a paper than indications of spelling or grammatical errors. When we read a rewritten paper where a student has not attempted to address the teacher's comments (when you address the comments, you don't necessarily agree with what the teacher has said, but you have dealt with the questions the teacher raised in the comments in some way--through further explanation, more vigorous refutation or counterargument, or a change of ideas), we know that the rewrite is incomplete.
   
   
2. Discuss them with the person who graded your paper. This is not required, but it is useful to find out what that person meant if you're not sure.
   
   
3. Make the substantive changes. Do the big rewriting first. Address the big-picture comments by rethinking your ideas (which sometimes means changing what you've said). You may want to ask yourself, "Are my ideas defensible here, or do I need to change them?" Sometimes jettisoning your ideas is the only way. One of my former teachers threw out a whole book manuscript, because it wasn't going right, and started over. Inexperienced writers tend to want to keep as much as possible. Most revisions need to be somewhere in between: some things get kept and other things have to go. For instance, it may be that your ideas are fine, but you haven't supported them properly and need to add to or change the way you support them. If so, turn your attention to that problem. It may also be that you've collected a fine body of evidence, but it doesn't support your conclusions, in which case the conclusions probably need to go.When you finish this part of the rewriting, you should have dealt with most (if not all) of the substantive comments.
   
   
4. Run spellcheck. Although spellcheck does not correct every error (if you write, "I'll meat you tomorrow," spellcheck will not correct your spelling) and does not have every word in the dictionary (you may get the suggestion that "Carolingian" be turned into "Carolinian"), it will help catch many common errors (the dreaded disease "Charlemange" will be a thing of the past).
   
   
5. Reread your assignment for grammar and spelling. It may be helpful to read your work aloud--you'll pay attention to every word and catch more. It is even more helpful to read your work to a friend (but this is not for the faint of heart). If there are errors you consistently make, check especially for those. If you get lots of papers back with "frag" marked on them, you create a lot of sentence fragments. Make sure your sentences are complete. If you aren't sure what kind of errors you consistently make, ask us. Don't limit your scrutiny of your paper to the errors noted by the reader. When we get papers where only the errors we've marked are corrected, we know we are seeing sloppy rewriting. Our job is not to edit your work, but to draw your attention to things you need to work on. That we didn't note an error is not an excuse for why the error is uncorrected.