Appendix E: Power-Revision Techniques
This appendix covers some of the most important aspects of writing-what's more
important than the information you put in a document, how you organize it, how you
link it all up together? Writing teachers tend not to do much with this sort of stuff in
their classrooms because it's just plain old hard and tedious. Yet, if we were to find
a way to make these revision concepts and techniques easier (or even fun?) to
learn, practice, and apply, we might have achieved one of the most important
breakthroughs in the teaching of writing.
When you look at all these powerful ways you can review (look for potential
problems) and then revise (fix those problems), you're likely to be put off by how
tedious and time-consuming it looks. This stuff can become second nature rather
quickly though. If you spend some time analyzing writing in the ways outlined in this
appendix, the way you write and the way you review what you write will change.
You'll start operating-and not even be fully aware of it-with this stuff in mind.
Therefore, if we had the proper materials, the proper equipment for you to work out
on for several weeks (some sort of verbal NordicTrac), these concepts and
techniques would become nearly second nature to you and really give a big boost
to this most important area of your writing.
Specifically, this appendix covers these paragraph- and higher-level elements:
This appendix also covers these sentence-style problems:
Return to the table of contents for the TCM1603 Course Guide
(the online textbook for Austin Community College's online
technical writing course).
This information is owned and maintained by David A. McMurrey. For
information on use, customization, or copies, e-mail
davidm@austin.cc.tx.us or call (512) 476-4949.