“Hello, thank you for visiting. Can I help you in any way?” If you’ve browsed our TAA website, you’ve likely seen those words in the chat box that appears on the screen. We’re often asked by visitors if we’re “real”. Then those who realize that we are, and that we are there to help, ask questions that you may have as well.

In this series of “Can I help you in any way?” posts, we’ll highlight some of the questions people have asked through the TAA Live Chat feature of our site and the responses we have for those questions. In this post, we’re focused on a question about academic principles for revisions. After asking if principles always help the writer and being asked for a bit of clarification on the question, a recent visitor stated, “I would like to know some academic principles we can use for revisions.”  

My answer to this inquiry wasn’t as straight-forward as most and was more opinion-based than resource-laden. Here it is in its entirety.  

1. Give your manuscript time to breathe – put it aside between first draft and revisions
2. Ensure that any thoughts that were not original (even when paraphrased) are cited in the manuscript
3. Reverse outline your manuscript and check the flow of content
4. Verify that the ideas introduced are covered and the conclusions drawn are supported by the information in between  

Revision is a different process from writing as you are exploring the flow and content from a reader perspective rather than from a creative perspective.  

Anything you would add to the discussion? Comment below.

Can we help you in other ways? Check out the previous series posts on learning objectives, essay writing, courses and workshops, publishing strategies, software tools for writers, and quoting sources.