A Writing Center Workshop

1
Finishing Touches

• A Writing Center Workshop

2
Do You Meet The Assignment Guidelines?

• Double check your rubric, and the instructions
  provided by your professor before you begin
  editing.
• Do you meet all the requirements?
• Are all the necessary topics addressed and
  supported?
• Is there anything else that needs to be added, or
  supported?

3
Major and Minor Edits

• Before you begin the final editing process for
  your paper, make sure your paper contains the
  following
• A well-developed focus (thesis) statement.
• Organized and developed ideas and concepts that
  expand on your focus statement.
• Logical transitions between ideas.
• Proper support for your ideas
• A properly cited references page.

4
Major Edits

• Major structural edits may be necessary for some
  portions of your paper. To decide if you need to
  make major edits, ask the following of your
  paper
• Is there a central focus, or purpose to my paper?
• Is my paper organized?
• Are my subtopics properly supported?
• If you answered no to any of the above, you may
  need to make some major edits.

5
Honing Your Focus

• If you have questions on focus, the following
  questions may help.
• What is it that your paper is trying to say?
• What is my goal, my purpose for writing this
  paper?
• What is the central issue at stake, and what are
  you trying to prove, or disprove?

6
Editing Your Organization

• Organization is key to an effective paper. To
  make sure your paper is well organized the
  following questions may help.
• Does your paper make logical transitions?
• Is there some relation between the topics in your
  paper?
• Are all the like ideas grouped together in your
  paper?

7
Developing Your Topics

• In addition to having a strong focus, it is also
  critical to properly develop your subtopics.
• Have your provided all the information necessary
  to make a strong argument?
• Have you addressed possible counterpoints to your
  argument?
• Are all your subtopics working together to
  support your primary claim?

8
Minor EditsProof-Reading Your Paper

• Try reading your paper backwards from the last
  sentence to the first.
• Reading it this way allows you to take each line
  out of context, and really focus in on errors at
  the sentence level.
• Proof-reading serves the purpose of making sure
  your paper makes sense at the sentence level and
  in terms of spelling, and grammar.

9
Minor EditsDocumentation Style

• Is your paper properly formatted in the style
  assigned by your instructor? Typically MLA or
  APA style.
• For concerns with documentation style, it is best
  to review the sample paper.
• Prior to beginning a paper, it may be best to
  also make use of the paper templates available on
  the Writing Centers web site.