Week 13 · Chapter

Chapter 13 — Revision & Style

English Composition Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~40–50 minutes · Objective 7 (revise globally and edit locally: re-see a draft's thesis, structure, argument, and evidence; then sharpen sentences for concision, variety, emphasis, and voice; and correct the most common surface errors — fragments, comma splices, fused sentences, agreement, pronoun reference, apostrophes, and commas), Objective 3 (develop an arguable, specific thesis and organize an essay around it — unified, coherent, well-developed paragraphs built from a point through evidence to explanation, with an introduction that lands the thesis, transitions that name real relationships, and a conclusion that synthesizes), Objective 1 (analyze the rhetorical situation — writer, audience, purpose, genre, and context — and approach writing as a recursive process of invention, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection, distinguishing revision (re-seeing ideas and structure) from editing (sentences and surface)) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the tutorial, the quiz, and the Writing Studio all build on it.

In plain language

A draft can need two very different kinds of help, and this week teaches you to give them one at a time. Global revision (re-seeing the whole draft: its thesis, its structure, its argument, and its evidence) comes first. Local editing (working on sentences and surface) comes second. Nancy Sommers published a study in 1980 showing that experienced writers re-see the whole piece while many student writers only swap words, and this chapter turns that finding into a routine. You will also learn concision (making every word earn its place), how to vary your sentences, where a sentence puts its weight, and when the passive voice is the right choice.

Why you already care about this

Picture a group project with five members and one shared slide deck. You draft a long email to the group about who does what. On the reread, you spot two problems. The first is big: you asked one teammate to build the charts, but the charts were another teammate's job all along, so half the email assigns the wrong work. The second is small: one sentence runs on for three lines, and the word "basically" shows up four times.

You know which problem to fix first. There is no point trimming "basically" out of a paragraph you are about to rewrite, because the rewrite will throw those sentences away. You fix what the email says first, and then you make each sentence clean. You have run that two-step routine on emails, texts, and cover letters without ever naming it.

Writing an essay works the same way, with one twist: the big problems in an essay are harder to see than a wrong name in an email. This chapter gives you the tools to see them, and then the tools to make every sentence that survives carry its weight.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

sort any change to a draft into global revision or local editing, and run the two passes in that order;
explain what Sommers (1980) found about how student writers and experienced writers revise;
write a reverse outline of a draft and use it to find a missing, repeated, or misplaced paragraph;
name the four kinds of deadwood and cut them without cutting a claim;
combine choppy sentences by coordination or subordination, with the commas each one needs;
place the idea you want remembered at the end of a sentence and in its main clause;
choose the active or the passive voice on purpose;
check a chatbot's "tightened" paragraph for a changed claim or an erased voice.

Carry this sentence with you: re-see first, polish second; cut deadwood, not ideas.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1, The Writing Process & the Rhetorical Situation, named the difference between revision and editing in one sentence each. Week 3, The Paragraph, built the running draft's body paragraph in a weak form and a revised form. Week 4, Thesis & Essay Structure, gave you the working thesis and the reverse outline. Week 5, Narrative & Expository Writing, previewed concision as the cure for over-writing. Week 12, The Research-Based Argument, assembled the running draft in full, from its thesis to its works-cited list.
This week: the full machinery of revision and style. You separate global revision from local editing, meet the study behind the two passes, and use the reverse outline as a global tool. Then you cut deadwood, try the 25 percent challenge, vary your sentences, place emphasis, choose active or passive voice, and check a chatbot's "tightened" paragraph.
How they connect: last week you built a complete draft. This week you treat that draft the way experienced writers treat theirs: you re-see its structure first, and only then do you polish its sentences.
Where we're going next: Week 14, Editing: Grammar, Mechanics & Common Errors, takes the local pass one level closer, to the sentence-boundary errors and punctuation that cost a reader's trust.

Three earlier ideas carry this chapter. From Week 1, revision is re-seeing a draft's ideas, focus, and structure, and editing improves its sentences and surface. This week those two words become two separate passes. From Week 3, the running draft's body paragraph exists in two forms, a weak one and a revised one, and this week you look again at what changed between them. From Week 4, a reverse outline lists what each paragraph of a finished draft does, and this week you use it on the whole running draft.

1. Separate global revision from local editing

Think about remodeling a kitchen. If the sink is on the wrong wall, you move the plumbing before you pick a faucet. Choosing the faucet first wastes money, because the plumber will rip it out. Drafts work the same way. Some changes move the plumbing, and some choose the faucet.

Global revision is re-seeing a draft as a whole by working on its thesis, structure, argument, and evidence, which can mean moving paragraphs, cutting sections, or rewriting the thesis.

Local editing is work on a draft's sentences and surface, such as wording, length, rhythm, and punctuation, done after the global pass so that no effort goes into sentences that are about to be cut.

The two-pass rule is the habit of revising globally and editing locally in separate passes, with the big pass on thesis, structure, argument, and evidence done first.

Worked example — sorting changes into the two passes. Here are six changes a writer might make to the running draft. The changes are illustrative, written for this course.

Rewriting the thesis so it makes a claim the essay can prove: global, because it changes what the whole essay argues.
Moving the counterargument paragraph so it comes after the evidence: global, because it changes the structure.
Cutting a paragraph that wanders off the claim: global, because it changes what the essay contains.
Replacing "due to the fact that" with "because": local, because it changes one phrase.
Combining two short sentences into one: local, because it changes rhythm, not argument.
Adding a comma after an introductory element: local, because it changes punctuation.

In words: if a change alters what the essay says or the order in which it says it, it belongs to the global pass. If it alters how one sentence sounds, it belongs to the local pass.

The order matters for a practical reason. Your first pass is global revision, and your second pass is local editing. Run them in that order, because you gain nothing by polishing a sentence your global pass is about to cut.

Misconception check — revising structure and editing sentences in one pass. Students often think the efficient move is to fix everything at once, top to bottom, commas and claims together. It is tempting because it feels thorough. But your attention can only hold one kind of problem at a time, and a line-by-line read keeps your eyes on sentences, so the structural problems slip past. The cure is two passes: read once for the whole, with sentences ignored, and then read again for sentences.

2. Meet the study behind the rule

Ask a friend what they did when they "revised" a paper, and you will often hear a list of small fixes: a better word here, a comma there. That answer is common enough that a researcher studied it.

Sommers (1980), "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers", published in College Composition and Communication, reported that the student writers she studied tended to treat revision as rewording at the level of single words. The experienced writers she studied re-saw the whole piece: they asked what the draft was arguing and whether its parts served that argument.

Here is an honesty note about what the study does and does not show. Sommers studied particular groups of writers, and her finding describes a tendency, not a law of nature. It does not say that every student writer only swaps words, or that word choice never matters. What it gives you is a useful warning: if every change you make is a word swap, you have edited, but you may not have revised.

Worked example — the same draft, two kinds of reviser. Imagine two writers handed the same rough cover letter (illustrative). The first changes "good" to "excellent", "job" to "position", and "I think" to "I believe". The second notices that the letter never says why the applicant wants this particular job, and adds a paragraph that does. Both writers changed the letter. Only the second one re-saw it.

In words: revision is a way of seeing the draft again, not a word swap.

Misconception check — revision confused with proofreading. Students often think "revise your draft" means "fix the typos". It is tempting because a typo is easy to see and easy to fix, and a fixed typo feels like progress. But proofreading is the last surface check inside editing. The cure is to ask a global question before you touch a word: does every paragraph serve my thesis?

3. Revisit the running draft's paragraph as global revision

You have seen the running draft's body paragraph in two forms since Week 3. This week, look at the change between them through the lens of the two passes. It is a clean example of global revision.

Here is the weak form (Model A, Stage 3). It is the student's draft, illustrative and attributed to no one.

"Phones are a problem in lectures. Everyone has one. I check mine a lot. My roommate's lecture hall has bad Wi-Fi anyway. Some students say they take notes on their phones. So phones should be banned."

It runs 6 sentences and 36 words.

Here is the revised form (Model A, Stage 4), also the student's draft.

"The strongest reason for a phone-free default is that the benefit is not spread evenly. Research on schools that banned phones found the gain in exam results concentrated among the lowest-achieving students, while higher-achieving students were largely unaffected (Beland and Murphy 61). That pattern matters for a policy decision: a rule that costs most students little and helps the students with the least slack is a rule a college can defend. The same logic explains why an exception for documented needs does not undo the policy — it protects the students the policy exists for."

It runs 4 sentences and 90 words of prose, plus the 4-word citation, (Beland and Murphy 61), that Week 12 added because the second sentence paraphrases their finding.

Worked example — what the global pass changed. Each change works on the paragraph's thinking, not its wording.

The topic sentence: the complaint "Phones are a problem in lectures" became a claim, "The strongest reason for a phone-free default is that the benefit is not spread evenly."
Unity: the Wi-Fi sentence, which broke unity, was cut. Bad Wi-Fi has nothing to do with whether phones belong in lecture.
Evidence: the paragraph now reports what research on schools that banned phones found, in place of "Everyone has one" and "I check mine a lot".
Explanation: the third sentence says why the evidence matters for a policy decision.
The ending: the unearned "So phones should be banned" became a link to the policy's exception.
The count: of the 6 old sentences, 0 survive, and the paragraph grew by 90 − 36 = 54 words.

In words: when you revise globally, you re-see; you do not produce a shorter version of the same paragraph. Not one sentence of the weak paragraph was polished into the revised one. Every sentence was rethought.

Misconception check — "revision means making it shorter." Students often think revising a paragraph means trimming it. It is tempting because "tighten this up" is common advice. But this paragraph's revision made it more than twice as long, because the weak version was missing evidence and explanation. The cure is to ask what the paragraph needs, not how long it is. Shortening is a local move that comes later.

Pause and think. Choose one of these two options.

(a) think of a piece of writing you once "revised" by changing only words, and say what a global change would have looked like.
(b) think of a time you rewrote a message from scratch instead of fixing it, and say what you saw that made the old version unfixable.

4. Use the reverse outline to see the whole draft

Look at a city from street level and you see storefronts. Look at it from a plane and you see that two highways never connect. A reverse outline is the view from the plane: it shows you the shape of a draft you have been reading one sentence at a time.

A reverse outline works backward from a finished draft in two steps. Beside each paragraph, you first note what it says, then what job it does for the argument. Then you read only those notes. Gaps, repeats, and paragraphs out of order show up in the list that you cannot see in the prose. It is the fastest global-revision tool you have.

Worked example — reverse-outlining the running draft. Start with the working thesis (Model A, Stage 2), the line every paragraph in your draft answers to.

"Our college should make lecture sections phone-free by default, with a stated exception for documented accommodations and emergencies, because the benefit falls hardest on the students who struggle most and the cost to everyone else is small."

The thesis makes 2 promises: the benefit falls hardest on the students who struggle most, and the cost to everyone else is small. Now write the says and does notes for the draft as it stands at the end of Week 12. The notes are illustrative, written for this course.

Reverse outline of the running draft's five paragraphs, with what each one says and the job it does
Paragraph	Says	Does
1	Phone use in lecture is unregulated	Introduces the problem and states the thesis
2	Phone rules are in wide use, and research explains whom they help	Sets the context with the sources in conversation
3	The benefit lands on the students who struggle most	Argues the first promise
4	Some students need phones, and an exception covers them	Steel-mans the objection and rebuts it
5	A phone-free default is a low-cost rule	Closes the case

Read only the Does column. Here is what it shows you: 5 paragraphs and 2 promises, but only 1 promise has a paragraph whose job is to argue it. The second promise, that the cost is small, turns up only in passing, as a clause in paragraph 3 and a line in the rebuttal of paragraph 4.

The global move follows from the list. Give the cost its own body paragraph and place it after paragraph 3, before the counterargument. Now each promise in the thesis gets a paragraph, and the counterargument answers a case already made. The draft goes from 5 paragraphs to 5 + 1 = 6.

In words: the reverse outline found a missing paragraph. No amount of polishing your sentences would have found this, because the problem was not in any sentence. It was in the shape.

There are other moves a reverse outline can suggest. If two Does notes say the same thing, cut or merge one paragraph. If a Does note says "summarizes a source" with no link to the thesis, that paragraph is a report, not an argument. If the notes would make more sense in a different order, move the paragraphs. And sometimes the fix is in the thesis itself: if the essay keeps arguing something the thesis never promised, rewrite the thesis.

Misconception check — "a reverse outline is the outline I wrote before drafting." Students often think a reverse outline is the plan they made at the start. It is tempting because both are lists of paragraphs. But a plan records what you meant to write, and a reverse outline records what you actually wrote. The cure is to write the notes from the finished draft, paragraph by paragraph, without looking at your plan, and then compare.

In practice (your tools). In your word processor, add a comment beside each paragraph with two short notes, "Says:" and "Does:". Then open the comments pane, or copy the comments into a blank document, so you read only the notes in order. If your word processor shows a navigation pane, it can display your headings, but a reverse outline needs the Does notes, which only you can write.

5. Cut deadwood, not ideas

Packing for a trip with a small bag teaches you fast. The third pair of shoes stays home, and so does the sweater you might wear. Nothing you need is left behind; only the things that were taking up room. That is concision.

Concision is writing in which every word earns its place. It aims at the strongest wording, which is not always the shortest, and it cuts words that do no work rather than ideas.

The words that do no work have a name. Deadwood is words that add length without adding meaning. The four common kinds are inflated phrases, redundancy, empty intensifiers, and buried verbs.

An inflated phrase is a several-word phrase standing in for a shorter one, such as "due to the fact that" for "because" or "at this point in time" for "now".
A redundancy is saying the same thing twice in a row, as in "each and every" or "end result", where one of the words already carries the full meaning.
An empty intensifier is a word such as "very", "really", or "totally" that tries to add force but usually adds nothing a precise word would not.
A buried verb is an action turned into a noun and propped up by a weak verb, as in "made a decision" for "decided"; freeing the verb makes the sentence shorter and more direct.

The habit has a long tradition. Strunk (1918), The Elements of Style, made Rule 13 "Omit needless words", and its opening is out of copyright, so you can read it in full: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts." Orwell (1946), "Politics and the English Language", published in Horizon, gave six rules for plain writing. Two of them belong here: "Never use a long word where a short one will do" and "If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out". Both writers make the same point: a word that does no work makes the reader do extra work.

Worked example — the concision pair (Model D). Both sentences are illustrative, written for this course and attributed to no one.

Before: "Due to the fact that the survey was very short, there were many students who completed it." 17 words.
After: "Because the survey was short, many students completed it." 9 words.
The inflated phrase: "Due to the fact that" became "Because", saving 5 − 1 = 4 words.
The empty intensifier: "very" went, saving 1 word. "Short" says it alone.
The padded opening: "there were many students who" became "many students", saving 3 words. The real subject, the students, now comes first.
The count: 4 + 1 + 3 = 8 words cut, and 17 − 8 = 9 remain.

In words: nearly half the words are gone and the meaning is intact. The counts are illustrative arithmetic, never a target; a different sentence might lose one word or none.

Worked example — freeing a buried verb. The committee sentence is illustrative.

Before: "The committee made a decision to hold a vote on the proposal." 12 words.
Find the actions hiding in nouns: "decision" hides "decide", and "vote" is propped up by "hold".
After: "The committee decided to vote on the proposal." 8 words.

In words: the verbs "decide" and "vote" were hiding inside the nouns "decision" and "vote", behind the weak verbs "made" and "hold". Freeing them made the sentence shorter and put the action where the reader expects it.

Misconception check — "longer or fancier is stronger." Students often think long sentences and big words sound more academic. It is tempting because dense prose can look impressive at a glance. But a reader has to unpack every inflated phrase, and readers tire. The cure is Orwell's rule: when a short word will do, use it.

Misconception check — "cutting words loses meaning." Students also worry that every cut throws away something they meant. It is tempting because the words feel like your thinking. But deadwood carries no meaning by definition. The cure is a test for each cut: read the sentence without the words. If the meaning is still there, the words were deadwood. If a claim is gone, put them back.

6. Try the 25 percent challenge

A runner who wants to get faster does drills that are harder than a race. Nobody grades the drills; they train the legs. The 25 percent challenge is a drill for your eye.

The 25 percent challenge is a practice target in which a writer tries to cut about a quarter of a paragraph's words without losing a single claim. It trains the eye for deadwood and is never scored.

Worked example — the club announcement. The announcement is illustrative, written for this course and attributed to no one.

Before: "At this point in time, the hiking club has made a decision to hold its first hike of the season at the north trailhead. Each and every member is invited to come. The trail is really steep, so bring water." 40 words.
A quarter of 40 is 40 ÷ 4 = 10, so the target is about 10 words.
The inflated phrase "At this point in time," goes: 5 words.
The buried verb "has made a decision" becomes "has decided": 2 words saved.
The redundancy "Each and every" becomes "Every": 2 words saved.
The empty intensifier "really" goes: 1 word.
The count: 5 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 10 words, and 10 ÷ 40 is one quarter.
After: "The hiking club has decided to hold its first hike of the season at the north trailhead. Every member is invited to come. The trail is steep, so bring water." 30 words.

In words: every claim you started with is still there: who, what, where, who is invited, and the warning. The cuts came from all four kinds of deadwood.

Here is a caveat. Some paragraphs cannot lose a quarter without losing a claim, because the writer already cut the deadwood. The running draft's revised paragraph is one of them. If the only way to reach 25 percent is to cut an idea, stop short. The challenge is practice, and a tight paragraph that misses the target has passed the real test.

Misconception check — the target treated as a rule. Students often think the challenge means every paragraph must shrink by a quarter. It is tempting because a number feels like a requirement. But the number is there to push you past the first easy cut. The cure is to treat 25 percent as a direction, not a quota, and to stop the moment the next cut would remove a claim.

7. Vary the sentences

Listen to someone who speaks only in short bursts. "I went out. It was cold. I came back." After a minute it sounds like a telegram. Now listen to someone who never pauses, whose every sentence runs on through clause after clause until you forget where it started. Both are hard to follow. Good prose mixes the two.

Sentence variety is a deliberate mix of sentence lengths and sentence openings, so that prose neither sounds choppy from too many short sentences nor drones from too many long ones.

The main tool is sentence combining: joining two or more short sentences into one, either by coordination or by subordination, to show how their ideas relate and to vary the rhythm.

Coordination is joining ideas of equal weight with a coordinating conjunction such as "and" or "but", with a comma before the conjunction when it joins two complete sentences.
Subordination is making one idea depend on another with a word such as "when", "because", or "although", so the reader can tell which idea is the main one.

Worked example — the storm report. The report is illustrative, written for this course and attributed to no one.

Before: "The storm reached the coast at dawn. The wind tore the roofs off the warehouses. The river rose over its banks. The main road closed. The shelters filled by noon." That is 5 sentences of 7, 8, 6, 4, and 5 words, all opening with "The", 30 words in all.
Subordination: "When the storm reached the coast at dawn, the wind tore the roofs off the warehouses." The storm's arrival now sets the time for the damage.
Coordination: "The river rose over its banks, and the main road closed." Two equal events, joined, with a comma before "and".
Keep one short sentence: "The shelters filled by noon." After two longer sentences, the short one lands the outcome.
After: "When the storm reached the coast at dawn, the wind tore the roofs off the warehouses. The river rose over its banks, and the main road closed. The shelters filled by noon." That is 3 sentences of 16, 11, and 5 words, 32 words in all.
The count: combining added 32 − 30 = 2 words.

In words: when you vary sentences, you are working on rhythm, not length. The revision is slightly longer, and it reads better, because the sentences now show how the events relate and no longer all start the same way.

Two commas travel with combining, and you met both in Week 3. They come from the course's sentence-error set (Model C, items 7 and 8), shown here in their corrected forms.

An introductory element takes a comma: "After the class finished its peer review, the draft doubled in length." When you combine by subordination and put the dependent part first, the comma marks where the main part begins.
A coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses takes a comma before it: "The claim is clear, but the evidence is thin." When you combine by coordination, the comma goes before the "and", "but", or "so".

Misconception check — "variety means every sentence long." Students often think sophisticated prose means long sentences throughout. It is tempting because short sentences can feel childish. But a page of long sentences drones, in the same way a page of short ones sounds choppy. The cure is a mix: combine where ideas belong together, and keep a short sentence where you want a point to land.

Pause and think. Choose one of these two options.

(a) read a paragraph you wrote recently aloud and say which sentence you would combine with its neighbor, and with which word.
(b) find a short sentence in something you wrote that you would keep short on purpose, and say what it lands.

8. Put the weight where it belongs

When you tell a story to friends, you save the punch line for the end. If you said it first, the rest would fall flat. Sentences work the same way. Readers give the most attention to what comes last, and to the part of the sentence that could stand alone.

Emphasis is the weight a sentence gives an idea. It falls most strongly on the end of the sentence and on the main clause, so writers put the idea they want remembered there.

The main clause is the part of a sentence that could stand alone as a complete sentence, which carries the idea the sentence treats as most important.

Worked example — one pair of facts, three sentences. The sentences use Model C, item 8, and two rearrangements of it.

"The claim is clear, but the evidence is thin." This sentence ends on the weakness, so the reader remembers the thin evidence.
"The evidence is thin, but the claim is clear." Same facts, reversed. Now it ends on the strength.
"Although the evidence is thin, the claim is clear." Subordination puts the weakness in a dependent part and the strength in the main clause, at the end. The strength now carries the weight twice over.

In words: the facts never changed, only their positions. Ask what you want your reader to remember, then put it in the main clause, near the end.

This matters most in an argument. A peer reviewer who writes the first sentence wants you to fix your evidence. A writer conceding a weak point in a counterargument paragraph wants the third sentence, because it admits the weakness and ends on the strength.

Misconception check — "the first word is the strongest spot." Students often think the start of a sentence carries the most weight, because headlines and topic sentences come first. It is tempting because openings do matter for orientation. But within a sentence, the end is where the stress falls. The cure is to read your key sentences aloud and listen for where your voice lands, then move the important idea there.

9. Choose active or passive on purpose

Compare two ways of reporting a broken window. "My brother broke the window" names who did it. "The window was broken" does not. Both are correct English, and each one is the right choice in a different situation. The difference has a name.

The active voice is a sentence pattern in which the doer of the action comes first as the subject and acts, as in "The committee approved the proposal."
The passive voice is a sentence pattern in which the receiver of the action comes first and the doer comes later or drops out, as in "The proposal was approved." It is correct grammar and the right choice when the doer is unknown, beside the point, or deliberately kept in the background.

Worked example — one action, three sentences. The committee sentences are illustrative, written for this course.

Active: "The committee approved the proposal." 5 words. The doer comes first and acts.
Passive with the doer: "The proposal was approved by the committee." 7 words. The receiver comes first; the doer arrives at the end, in a "by" phrase.
Passive without the doer: "The proposal was approved." 4 words. The doer is gone.

In words: each is correct grammar; your choice depends on what your reader needs to know first.

Worked example — passive on purpose. The lab sentence is illustrative: "The samples were weighed twice." The doer does not matter to your reader, who needs to know what happened to the samples, so the passive is your right choice. Writing "I weighed the samples twice" would shift attention to the person, which a methods section rarely wants.

So when is active better? Use it when the doer matters to your point, which in an argument is most of the time. "The committee approved the proposal" holds the committee responsible. "The proposal was approved" lets it off the hook. When a passive sentence hides a doer your reader needs, rewrite it in the active voice.

Misconception check — "passive voice is wrong." Students often believe the passive is a grammar error, because a grammar checker underlines it or a teacher once circled it. It is tempting because the advice "prefer the active" is common and usually good. But the passive is a tool. The cure is a question, not a rule: does my reader need to know who did this? If yes, use the active. If the doer is unknown, beside the point, or deliberately in the background, the passive is correct and right.

10. Check the machine: the "tightened" paragraph

Chatbots are quick at making text shorter. Paste in a paragraph, ask for it "tighter", and a smoother, shorter version arrives in seconds. The danger is that "shorter" and "same claim" are two different things, and the chatbot does not always keep the second.

Voice-erasing over-editing is editing, often by a chatbot, that flattens a writer's own phrasing into generic wording or quietly changes the writer's claim while making a passage shorter or smoother.

The course's rule for every chatbot moment holds here too: the tool drafts, and the writer judges. A chatbot can point to a phrase that might be deadwood. It cannot decide which of your ideas are worth keeping.

Worked example — testing a chatbot's tightened paragraph. The exchange is described in words, as an illustration written for this course and attributed to no product.

The request: you ask a chatbot to "tighten" the running draft's 90-word revised paragraph.
The reply: "Phone bans raise grades for struggling students, so colleges should ban phones in lectures." That is 14 words, so 90 − 14 = 76 words are gone.
Compare the claim: the paragraph argued for a phone-free default with a stated exception. The reply argues for a ban, which is the opposite of the running draft's rebuttal, an opt-in accommodation and a stated exception, not a blanket ban.
Compare the evidence: the paragraph reported a gain in exam results concentrated among the lowest-achieving students. The reply says the bans "raise grades for struggling students", which changes both what was measured and how it is described.
Compare the scope: the thesis is about one college. The reply speaks for all colleges.
Compare the voice: the writer's own phrasing, "the students with the least slack" and "a rule a college can defend", is gone, along with the reasoning about the exception.

In words: the cut removed your ideas, not your deadwood, so you keep your original paragraph. A chatbot's edit passes only if the claim, the evidence, the scope, and the voice all survive it.

Misconception check — "shorter means better." Students often accept a chatbot's tighter version because it is shorter and sounds smooth. It is tempting because concision is this week's goal. But concision cuts deadwood, not claims, and a paragraph that lost its claim has been changed, not tightened. The cure is to compare the claim before and after, sentence by sentence. If the claim changed, the cut fails, however short it is.

In practice (your tools). Paste the chatbot's version into your word processor directly below your own paragraph. Highlight your claim, your evidence, and two phrases that sound like you. Then look for each one in the chatbot's version. If any highlight has no match, reject that edit, and make your own concision pass that cuts only deadwood.

Key terms

global revision — Re-seeing a draft as a whole by working on its thesis, structure, argument, and evidence, which can mean moving paragraphs, cutting sections, or rewriting the thesis. (first used: 1. Separate global revision from local editing)
local editing — Work on a draft's sentences and surface, such as wording, length, rhythm, and punctuation, done after the global pass so that no effort goes into sentences that are about to be cut. (first used: 1. Separate global revision from local editing)
two-pass rule — The habit of revising globally and editing locally in separate passes, with the big pass on thesis, structure, argument, and evidence done first. (first used: 1. Separate global revision from local editing)
concision — Writing in which every word earns its place; it aims at the strongest wording, which is not always the shortest, and it cuts words that do no work rather than ideas. (first used: 5. Cut deadwood, not ideas)
deadwood — Words that add length without adding meaning; the four common kinds are inflated phrases, redundancy, empty intensifiers, and buried verbs. (first used: 5. Cut deadwood, not ideas)
inflated phrase — A several-word phrase standing in for a shorter one, such as "due to the fact that" for "because" or "at this point in time" for "now". (first used: 5. Cut deadwood, not ideas)
redundancy — Saying the same thing twice in a row, as in "each and every" or "end result", where one of the words already carries the full meaning. (first used: 5. Cut deadwood, not ideas)
empty intensifier — A word such as "very", "really", or "totally" that tries to add force but usually adds nothing a precise word would not. (first used: 5. Cut deadwood, not ideas)
buried verb — An action turned into a noun and propped up by a weak verb, as in "made a decision" for "decided"; freeing the verb makes the sentence shorter and more direct. (first used: 5. Cut deadwood, not ideas)
25 percent challenge — A practice target in which a writer tries to cut about a quarter of a paragraph's words without losing a single claim; it trains the eye for deadwood and is never scored. (first used: 6. Try the 25 percent challenge)
sentence variety — A deliberate mix of sentence lengths and sentence openings, so that prose neither sounds choppy from too many short sentences nor drones from too many long ones. (first used: 7. Vary the sentences)
sentence combining — Joining two or more short sentences into one, either by coordination or by subordination, to show how their ideas relate and to vary the rhythm. (first used: 7. Vary the sentences)
coordination — Joining ideas of equal weight with a coordinating conjunction such as "and" or "but", with a comma before the conjunction when it joins two complete sentences. (first used: 7. Vary the sentences)
subordination — Making one idea depend on another with a word such as "when", "because", or "although", so the reader can tell which idea is the main one. (first used: 7. Vary the sentences)
emphasis — The weight a sentence gives an idea; it falls most strongly on the end of the sentence and on the main clause, so writers put the idea they want remembered there. (first used: 8. Put the weight where it belongs)
main clause — The part of a sentence that could stand alone as a complete sentence, which carries the idea the sentence treats as most important. (first used: 8. Put the weight where it belongs)
active voice — A sentence pattern in which the doer of the action comes first as the subject and acts, as in "The committee approved the proposal." (first used: 9. Choose active or passive on purpose)
passive voice — A sentence pattern in which the receiver of the action comes first and the doer comes later or drops out, as in "The proposal was approved."; it is correct grammar and the right choice when the doer is unknown, beside the point, or deliberately kept in the background. (first used: 9. Choose active or passive on purpose)
voice-erasing over-editing — Editing, often by a chatbot, that flattens a writer's own phrasing into generic wording or quietly changes the writer's claim while making a passage shorter or smoother. (first used: 10. Check the machine: the "tightened" paragraph)

Summary

Global revision re-sees thesis, structure, argument, and evidence; local editing works on sentences.
Run two passes, global first, so you never polish a sentence you will cut.
Sommers (1980) found that student writers tended to reword; experienced writers re-saw the whole.
A reverse outline's Does notes show gaps, repeats, and paragraphs out of order.
Concision means every word earns its place, not the fewest words.
Deadwood comes in four kinds: inflated phrases, redundancy, empty intensifiers, buried verbs.
The 25 percent challenge is practice; stop before a cut removes a claim.
Vary sentences by combining with coordination or subordination, and keep a short one to land a point.
Emphasis falls on the end of the sentence and the main clause.
Choose active or passive by asking whether the reader needs the doer.
A chatbot's tighter paragraph passes only if the claim and the voice survive.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

A student revising a cover letter (illustrative) makes four changes. Sort each into global revision or local editing.
- (a) Moves the paragraph about volunteer work ahead of the paragraph about coursework, because the job ad stresses service.
- (b) Cuts "very" from "very excited".
- (c) Rewrites the opening so it names the specific job and why the applicant fits it.
- (d) Adds a missing comma after "In my last position".
A rider writes a complaint to a transit agency (illustrative): "In my personal opinion, the last bus of the evening is really late on a regular basis, and the transit agency should make a change to the schedule." The sentence has 28 words. Name each kind of deadwood you find, cut it, and count what remains.
A neighborhood newsletter (illustrative) reads: "The bakery on the corner closed. It had served the block for years. Neighbors were sad. A bookstore will open in its place." Combine these into two sentences, using one subordination and one coordination, with the commas each needs.
A student's lab report (illustrative) contains two passive sentences: "The mixture was stirred for a minute." and "Mistakes were made in the data table." For each, decide whether the passive is a good choice, and explain why.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Two of the four are global and two are local. This item catches the mix-up between revision and editing.
- (a) Global. Moving a paragraph changes the letter's structure and what it emphasizes.
- (b) Local. Cutting an empty intensifier changes one word.
- (c) Global. Rewriting the opening changes what the letter claims about the applicant.
- (d) Local. A comma after an introductory element is punctuation.
There are four pieces of deadwood. "In my personal opinion," is an inflated phrase with a redundancy inside it ("my" and "personal" say the same thing), and the whole complaint is already the rider's opinion, so all 4 words go. "Really" is an empty intensifier: 1 word. "On a regular basis" is an inflated phrase for "often": 4 words become 1, saving 3. "Make a change to" is a buried verb for "change": 4 words become 1, saving 3. The cuts total 4 + 1 + 3 + 3 = 11 words, and 28 − 11 = 17 remain: "The last bus of the evening is often late, and the transit agency should change the schedule." The claim and the request both survive. That is more than the 25 percent challenge asks for, since a quarter of 28 is 7.
One good version: "After it had served the block for years, the bakery on the corner closed. Neighbors were sad, but a bookstore will open in its place." The first sentence uses subordination: "After it had served the block for years" depends on the main clause, "the bakery on the corner closed", and the comma marks where the main clause begins. The second sentence uses coordination: two ideas of equal weight joined by "but", with a comma before it because each half could stand alone. The main clause of the first sentence and the end of the second carry the news, and nothing new was added. This item catches the habit of slipping a new claim in while combining.
The first passive is a good choice; the second is not. In "The mixture was stirred for a minute.", the reader of a methods section needs to know what happened to the mixture, and who stirred it is beside the point. In "Mistakes were made in the data table.", the doer matters: a reader checking the report needs to know who made the mistakes and who will fix them. Rewrite it in the active voice, for example "I made two entry errors in the data table and corrected them." This item catches the belief that the passive is always wrong, and the opposite belief that it is always fine.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week, Editing: Grammar, Mechanics & Common Errors takes the local pass down to the clause rule behind every sentence boundary.

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