9 What’s Good Feedback?
Bruce Ballenger’s offers 5 Categories of Revision to help you connect particular problems in a draft to concrete revision strategies that you can use for almost any writing you do. You should use specific revision strategies depending on the kind of problem in the draft:
- Problems with Purpose
- Problems with Meaning
- Problems with Information
- Problems with Structure
- Problems with Clarity and Style
What each revision category sounds like:
- “There are about 3 different topics in this paper.”
- “I thought the thesis was pretty obvious.”
- “Parts of the draft seemed pretty vague or general.”
- “I understood your point, but I couldn’t figure out what this had to do with that.”
- “This sentence seems really awkward to me.”
Problems with Purpose:
Write a motive statement- My goal in this essay is to (explore, evaluate, explain, demonstrate, argue, analyze, reflect on, etc.) .
| Genre | Motive |
| Personal Essay | Explore |
| Lit Review | Evaluate |
| Proposal | Evaluate or Explain |
| Argument | Demonstrate, Argue, Analyze |
| Research Essay | Explore, Argue, Analyze |
| Critical Analysis | Evaluate or Argue |
| Reflective Essay | Reflect or Explain |
Problems with Meaning:
Refine your thesis with Who? What? When? Where? Why? questions…
The university should do more for second language speakers.
WHY?
The university should do more for second language speakers because the city’s immigrant population is growing.
WHEN? WHO?
Because planners predict an influx of Bosnian, Hispanic, and Lithuanian immigrants in the next
five years, the university should do more to develop its English as a Second Language program.
Problems with Information:
Move beyond examples. Add the following types of information to your draft:
- Present counter-arguments
- Provide background information
- Explain the significance
- Give a problem a face
- Define key terms
Problems with Structure:
In order to check your organization, make a reverse outline.
- Read your essay one paragraph at a time.
- For each paragraph, write a single sentence explaining the main purpose or main point of the paragraph.
- Put those sentences into the most logical order, and then re-organize your essay accordingly.
- Identify redundant paragraphs or refocus if necessary.
- See related topic sentence revision handout.*
Problems with Clarity and Style:
Cut your clutter by replacing stock phrases with something simpler.
| The reason being | Because |
| At the present time | Now |
| I think/I believe | [Omit entirely] |
| Until such time as | Until |
| A number of | Many |
| There is a need for | Must or Necessarily |
| In today’s world | Currently or Recently |
- Adapted from Ballenger's, B. (2017), The curious writer. Pearson Education, Inc. ↵
