Academic Writing: Revision of Assignments and Using Feedback

Task 1. Tips for Revising
Tip #1: Review your class notes and decide what the most important purposes are for your assignment.
Tip #2: Address global issues first and then local issues.
Tip #3: Use tools to check plagiarism and review your paraphrases and your citations.
Tip #4: Focus on grammatical issues that you think may interfere with meaning.
Tip #5: Proofread your writing a few times and minimize spelling or formatting errors.
A. Explain your understanding of Tip #2, advises addressing global issues first. What does this mean and how does one do this?
B. Regarding Tip #4, what types of language areas impedes or hinders the comprehensibility of writing? How might you approach revising for this?
Task 2. Addressing Feedback
A. Your friend received some feedback from their instructor, but is having trouble understanding it. Choose one of the example comments and write out an explanation for your friend: what is the instructor expecting them to do in the next revision? why are they expecting this?
B. Choose a comment that is difficult for you to understand, and explain why you feel this way. You may either use one of the examples below, or describe feedback you received on your own writing either for this class or another course.
Examples of Instructor Comments
An important feature of a good summary is objectivity. Look at the sentences I highlighted in your summary. Are they the author’s ideas or yours?
The content and structure of your synthesis paper is okay, but I noticed quite a few spelling and punctuation errors. Spend more time proofreading.
Your topic sentences do not seem all that effective. Some of them are very general and do not specifically point out the focus of the paragraphs; others are not clearly worded, and the reader probably won’t be able to easily understand what you are trying say.
You have a very interesting and important research question for the paper, and your sources are well chosen and clearly presented. However, your own perspectives seem to get a little lost in your report of the sources. What is your stance about the issue? What would be your answer to the research question?
Make sure that you double-check the requirements for the synthesis paper, e.g., the length of the paper and the number of sources needed. It looks like your draft is not following some of the basic requirements for this assignment.
Have you been to the Center for Excellence in Writing and Communication (CEWC)? You seem to have some misunderstanding about the reading, and you may find it helpful to talk to a tutor about it.
We’ve talked about how to make connections between sources for synthesis writing quite a few times. Please check your notes and revise accordingly.
Some of your paraphrases are not very appropriate—you are keeping too much of the original wording. This can be considered plagiarism, which is a big issue. Why don’t you come to my office hours or schedule an appointment with me so we can go over your paraphrases together?
Your vocabulary and grammar choices sometimes make it quite difficult for the general reader to follow your discussion. Take a look at my markings and try to work on this for your next draft.