It has been said that all good writing is rewriting: in other words, that editing is a critical part of turning out a polished, finished document. Of course, most college students are struggling to ‘beat the clock’ and simply get their papers done, with little time to revise them. But editing is important, not simply to catch silly spelling mistakes and grammatical errors but also for content and flow.  Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird once said: “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” A good writer has to be intensely self-critical of his or her own abilities and work.

When revising your papers it is important to look at them with ‘new eyes.’  Imagine if you had never taken the class—would you still be able to understand it and follow the argumentation? Are you repeating your ideas and words or are you saying something new in every paragraph? Does every paragraph have a topic sentence that supports your thesis? After writing your actual thesis in the first paragraph of your paper, your thoughts about the topic may have changed over the course of writing the paper and you may need to give particular attention to the first paragraph again, during the revising process.

Another good idea is to give your paper to a friend to look it over with ‘new eyes.’  Of course, not everyone has a trusted friend who will tell the truth and is an equally good writer.  That is where PaperDue’s staff of professional writers can be of assistance. We can offer our writers’ editing services or you can request a custom-written sample paper to assist you with the writing process.  Revising a rough draft can be equally challenging as writing a new paper from scratch and professional writing and editing services can make the difference between simply scraping by in a class and getting a good grade.