You have a draft of your article,
now what? First give yourself a cheer and celebrate, then begin the rewriting
process. Rewriting?? Yes, you have done a first draft, hopefully including all
of the necessary parts, but it is rough, and needs a lot of polishing. I
suggest reading through the draft in full, make notes to yourself (I use track
changes) and mark areas that are not complete, may not be clear to someone
reading it for the first time, or need more support with citations. Then start
at the beginning and read each sentence aloud, is there a way to make it
clearer, more concise? Picture your grandmother, who knows nothing about your
area of study, reading it: would she understand that sentence? Check for any
pronouns (they, he, and she); is it clear to whom the pronouns are referring?
Check your plurals versus possessives (this makes me crazy when they are
wrong): plurals (e.g. “girls”) do not have an apostrophe, possessives do have
an apostrophe (e.g., “the girl’s bike;” “the girls’ bikes”). Do you know a
former English major? Someone who is a great writer? If so, ask them to read
through your paper and offer suggestions.
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