Chapter 13: Revising Argument, Structure, and Analysis

What You Will Make

Produce a revision memo and a revised argument. Start with the question and thesis, then inspect paragraph order, evidence, and analysis. Sentence polish cannot compensate for a conclusion the evidence does not establish.

Diagnose Before Rewriting

Describe each paragraph’s actual point in a short margin note. Compare the sequence with the thesis. Mark gaps, repetitions, and paragraphs whose topic is relevant but whose function in the argument is unclear.

Treat feedback as a report of a reader’s difficulty. Separate that concern from the reader’s suggested solution. You may address the difficulty in another way, provided the revised reasoning genuinely resolves it.

Fictional teaching case: This lesson uses the invented campus-transit records in Chapter 1. Record labels and numbers are practice material, not real research to cite or submit.

Make a Consequential Revision

A draft argues that the service change improved access for everyone. Its first four paragraphs discuss increased boardings; the timetable problem appears only in a final caveat.

The important change is to bring the access criterion forward and revise the thesis. Give Records B and C their own analysis, explain the survey’s selection limit beside its finding, and acknowledge that greater usage remains relevant. Cutting a few sentences from the opening would not resolve the mismatch.

Revision memo: “The original conclusion confused trips with universal access. I reorganised around the measures and narrowed the claim. The timetable gap is now part of the answer rather than an afterthought.” This explains the decision in terms a reviewer can check.

Try It Yourself

Choose the most serious reader concern or evidentiary gap. State it in one sentence, identify the affected sections, and make a targeted revision. Then read those sections together to see whether the repair creates a new inconsistency elsewhere.

If a counterexample undermines your central answer, return to the thesis instead of defending it through increasingly vague language.

Check Your Work

• Does the revised structure follow the logic of the question?
• Are inconvenient findings represented proportionately?
• Can the reader follow the inference from source to answer?
• Have the title, introduction, and conclusion caught up with the revision?

Save the earlier version and the memo before beginning the style pass.

Source Guidance

A reverse outline lists existing paragraph points so their order and gaps can be examined. (Harvard College Writing Center)