Assignment: Identifying Opportunities for Revisions

Successful artists, engineers, and authors understand the importance of taking an objective view of their work and identifying opportunities for improvement. Revising and refining one's work, whether a painting, a physical project, or a piece of writing, is an important step toward creating a masterpiece. Likewise, as an interdisciplinary practitioner, you must also be able to seize these opportunities for revising. Editing and refining your writing will create a body of work that stands up to academic scrutiny and will provide a deeper understanding of the problem statement or focus question. In this Discussion, you will share your own strategies and experiences with revising your work and learn other strategies from your colleagues that may benefit the revisions of your Capstone Project.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review the revision resources articles located in the Learning Resources for examples of making revisions to writing.

• Review resources (books, articles, and websites) that you have found on your own to help identify strategies for making revisions.

• Think about your previous writing experiences where you have had to go back to the beginning of a project. What revisions did you choose to make? What were the critical indications that identified an appropriate opportunity to make revisions?

• Consider strategies you currently use when revising your work. What advice would you give to your colleagues who want to improve their revision skills?

With these thoughts in mind:

Post 2-3 paragraphs explaining at least two different strategies for revising written work. Begin each paragraph with the identified strategy, and include answers to the following questions:

• What makes the identified strategy valuable to you as a writer and why?

• How will the identified strategy help to increase the effectiveness of the written works for your Capstone Project and the Capstone Projects of your colleagues?

Be sure to support your ideas by connecting them to the week's Learning Resources or to something that you have read, heard, seen, or experienced.