Tom Noonan

Have someone read your essay before submitting

When doing any sort of writing, it is very important to have some read it over to get a second opinion.  This step is crucial because you, as the writer, typically know what point you are trying to make.

When doing any sort of writing, it is very important to have some read it over to get a second opinion.  This step is crucial because you, as the writer, typically know what point you are trying to make.  You understand all the research you have done and you know exactly what you are talking about.  So when you read over your own work, it is almost useless in trying to see if it is good writing or not.  Since you already know exactly what point the essay is trying to make, you won’t know whether it is effective at conveying your ideas to someone who doesn’t already know about them.

By having someone review your essay, you are basically testing your essay.  Your goal with your essay is to effectively convey an idea or a point to someone who doesn’t know about it already, so by having someone else read your essay, you are seeing if it works.  You can consider your essay successful if the reader fully understands what you are trying to say in your essay after they read it.  If they can’t, you still have a lot of work to do.  Even if they can understand what you are trying to say, it doesn’t mean that you are completely finished with the essay.  You might want to ask the reader to give you some feedback.  There is a lot of stuff that a third party might catch while reading your essay that you will miss every time.

If the reviewer is not capable of figureing out what you are trying to say, you will need to work further with them to figure out what the problems are exactly.  A good portion of the time, the writer will leave out key information which they typically take for granted.  For example, there might be some sort of background story that goes along with the writing, and the reader may not know about it, but the writer falsely assumes that everyone knows the information already.

Try working with the reader to see if they can help provide some ways to get the point across better.  If they don’t understand your essay, sit down with them and explain it in words.  Once they understand what you are trying to say, they will be better able to identify the shortcomings of your essay.  When the two of you identify the problems, you can go back to work on the essay, focusing on the problematic areas.

If you are trying to figure out who to have read your essay, just look around you.  Your parents, brothers or sisters, friends or roommates should all be willing to read a few pages if it means you will be getting a better grade.  If you have exhausted your efforts around the house, search the internet for some peer review essay websites.  You might be able to find some free help online.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR