In this section, you will learn strategies to revise your essay for clarity and for particular rhetorical purposes. These strategies will include schemes and tropes.
According to textbook authors David Jolliffe and Hepzibah Roskelly, a “scheme” is any artful variation from the typical arrangement of words in a sentence. “Artful” conveys the importance of the writer’s choice. In revising, you want to make deliberate decisions that will guide the reader and strengthen your assertion or argument.
One of the most important schemes is balance, especially parallel structure. Words, phrases, or clauses within a sentence may be arranged so that they are parallel (balanced) grammatically. Using the link that follows, watch a brief presentation of Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” in which parallel grammatical structures will be highlighted for you on the screen. Next, take the parallel structure online quiz by selecting the sentence that illustrates the use of proper parallel structure. At the end of the quiz, you will click on “submit application” to see the correct answers. Making sure your own writing includes parallel structure will increase its clarity and strengthen its impact on the reader.
Now watch the presentation of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. When you’re finished reading, take the quiz.
Jolliffe and Roskelly define a “trope” as any artful variation from the typical or expected way a word or idea is expressed. Tropes include figurative language such as metaphors, similes, analogies, and rhetorical questions.
Another important aspect of revision is varying your sentence beginnings. Visit the Purdue Online Writing Lab to see more than a dozen amazing ways to vary the beginning of this sentence: “The biggest coincidence that day happened when David and I ended up sitting next to each other at the Super Bowl.” You may want to explore the Online Writing Lab further for many other excellent suggestions for revision of your essay.
Link to Purdue’s Online Writing Lab
Effective writers often use a checklist when they revise their work.The one that follows is based on the strategies you have learned in this lesson. The sample student essay about the short story “A Worn Path” is used as a basis for this checklist, but it will work for other readings and essays as well. To use a checklist, you should respond to each question to see if you have covered the required components. Some example responses have been included as mouse overs at the end of the first three questions.
Does your introduction move from general to specific?
Yes, the introduction moves from the general “complexity of the plot” to the specific conflicting forces (old age, poverty, environment, and illness) that the main character faces.
CloseDoes your introduction provide context for the reader?
Yes, the context provided includes title, author, genre, and a brief summary of plot so that the person reading this essay could understand and appreciate it even without reading the story itself.
CloseDoes your thesis include an assertion of the writer’s opinion on a topic?
Yes, the writer asserts that the story is more complex than a “record of her walk.” It is a tale of how courage and determination may help a character overcome what seem to be overwhelming odds.
Close Does your topic sentence for body paragraph one contain “echo” words to guide the reader?
What are they? Highlight them in yellow on your draft.
Does your topic sentence for body paragraph two contain “echo” words to guide the reader?
What are they? Highlight them in yellow on your draft.
Do additional topic sentences for body paragraphs contain “echo” words to guide the reader?
What are they? Highlight them in yellow on your draft.
When textual evidence is presented in support of your thesis, is it “sandwiched”? Highlight top
slices in pink. Highlight bottom slices in blue.
Have you provided transition words to guide your reader? What are they? Circle them throughout
your draft.
Have you varied your sentence beginnings? Highlight the first four words of each sentence in
green. How many sentences begin with “the”?
Have you used parallel structure when possible? Highlight examples of it in orange.
Click here to download a printable version of this checklist.