Download Steps for Ratiocination – Rough Drafts

Steps for Revising Your Rough Draft
Do the following steps on your own rough draft:
 Color #1: Draw a circle around all to be verbs. Write the number of circles at the top of your paper.
to be verbs = be, being, been, am, is, are, was, were, etc
Why do I have you find these? Because they’re BORING! Try to change half of them. Example:
ugh: Jack was angry when he found out he failed his math test.
better: Jack shouted and punched the wall when he found out he failed his math test.

Color #2: make a wavy line under any words you use repeatedly
ignore common words like the, and, of, etc and specific character names
The thesaurus is your friend! Vary your word choice and avoid using the same four words over and over and over again.

colors #3 and #4: underline each sentence, alternating colors
This helps you see if you’re varying the lengths of your sentences—are they all short so you sound like a robot? Are they all long so I
forget what you’re saying halfway through? This also helps you see run-ons and sentence fragments.

color #5: put an X through any dead words
dead words = I, me, my, mine, you, your, yours, you’re, a lot, stuff, good, bad, very
This is pretty obvious—no dead words! Just like I don’t want dead bodies in my classroom (like zombies), I don’t want dead words.

with any color you want to reuse: put a triangle around the word it.
This helps you see if you’re being specific enough—do you make it clear what that “it” is referring to?
Get one or two peer edits using the peer edit sheet I gave you. One is required, two is recommended.
Give your rough draft to a third person and have them read it out loud to you. Make note of anything else
that isn’t clear, doesn’t make sense, or just sounds bad.
Finally: Fix it! You’ve done all this work, and found all the problems that exist in your essay—spend some
time fixing those problems. This will lead you to a better final draft, and a better grade!