Category Archives: revision strategy

propositional density – a helpful steer on writing and revising

Posted on June 6, 2022 by pat thomson

Yes, it’s another post on terminology, on naming. Being able to give something a name is important – a name is shorthand for a lot of information. When we name something we can then discuss it, and this is of … Continue reading →

Posted in nominalisation, nouny, propositional density, revision, revision strategy | Tagged nouny prose, Pat Thomson, propositional density, revision | 1 Comment

check for the passive voice

Posted on November 22, 2021 by pat thomson

Passive voice. Put simply, the active voice is when the actor, the person doing the action, is named. The writer does not name the actor when using passive voice. Ironically, the first sentence above does not name the actor – … Continue reading →

Posted in passive voice, revision, revision strategy | Tagged communication, passive voice, Pat Thomson, revision, revision strategy | 1 Comment

the disappearing writer – a redrafting strategy

Posted on November 15, 2021 by pat thomson

Academic writers often lose themselves when writing about literatures. It is easier to be textually confident when writing about what you did yourself than to summarise, synthesise and assess other people’s texts. Particularly if those texts are produced by more … Continue reading →

Posted in drafting, laundry list, literature review, literature reviews, revision, revision strategy, the disappearing writer | Tagged academic writing, commmunicating, laundry list, literatures work, Pat Thomson, revising, the disappearing writers | 1 Comment

revising? start strategically

Posted on November 8, 2021 by pat thomson

Whether you are revising your own writing or responding to reviewer feedback, you need to work out what to do. But you also need to work out where to start. You may have made a revising plan or written out … Continue reading →

Posted in crappy first draft, peer review, revision, revision strategy | Tagged communication, Pat Thomson, revision, revision strategy | Leave a comment

revising? try a four step approach

Posted on November 1, 2021 by pat thomson

Many people approach revising as if it is a single shot process. They tell themselves, “I’m just going to sit down now and revise my paper”. But revising and refining a text are not one activity, they are several. The … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, communication, revision, revision strategy, supervision | Tagged communication, Pat Thomson, revision, revision strategy, supervision | 2 Comments

revision – the “make it better” exercise

Posted on September 20, 2021 by pat thomson

Occasionally I offer strategies that you can try to see if they work for you. If they do, and not everything works for everybody, then you can add them to your academic writing repertoire. Today I’ve got an exercise designed … Continue reading →

Posted in make it better, revision, revision strategy | Tagged academic writing, make it better, Pat Thomson, revision, revision strategy | 2 Comments

revising – nine steps for making meaning

Posted on May 10, 2021 by pat thomson

In 1973 the late Donald Murray published an essay in The Writer in which he argues that writing begins when the first draft is completed. From then on, he says, the writer revises, reads and changes their words, closing in … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, revision, revision strategy, thesis revision | Tagged Donald Murray, Pat Thomson, revision, revision strategy, writing as making | 1 Comment

making your writing authoritative – a citation revision strategy

Posted on April 19, 2021 by pat thomson

Readers expect academic writers to know what they are talking about. We meet that expectation by grounding our writing in good scholarship – and making it sound authoritative. Authoritative. You can see the words author and authority contained within authoritative … Continue reading →

Posted in authority in writing, citation, citations, laundry list, revision, revision strategy | Tagged citation practice, citations, Pat Thomson, revision strategy, writing with authority | 8 Comments

a very neat hack to avoid repetition and duplication

Posted on March 22, 2021 by pat thomson

Do you repeat yourself? Most of us do. It’s not unusual. Repetitive writing takes many forms – several sentences that say the same thing using different words, a word or phrase used over and over, paragraphs and sentences that have … Continue reading →

Posted in concision, duplication, repetition, revision, revision strategy | Tagged concision, duplication, Pat Thomson, repetition, revision | 5 Comments

editing your writing – lessons from chefs?

Posted on March 8, 2021 by pat thomson

You can pick up helpful ideas from the most unlikely places. Like cooking shows. Yes I watch cooking shows, it’s one of my guilty pleasures. I’m sure I’m not the only one, given their popularity. Sometimes they offer more than … Continue reading →