Higher Order vs. Lower Order Concerns

1. Higher Order vs. Lower Order Concerns Information from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/548/01/

2. Higher Order Lower Order • Focus and Purpose • Audience • Organization and Document Design • Development • Readability • Sentence Structure • Punctuation • Word Choice • Spelling Higher Order Concerns vs. Lower Order Concerns

3. Higher Order vs. Lower Order Concerns • When revising, always start with the higher order concerns. • Lower order concerns should be addressed last in the revision process.

4. Higher Order Concerns

5. Focus and Purpose • Does your document achieve the purpose it was meant to meet? • In other words, if it is a persuasive essay assignment, is it sufficiently persuasive? Or, if it is a rhetorical analysis, does it analyze the text sufficiently? • I.e. does your document fulfill the assignment requirements?

6. Audience • Is the tone/language you use appropriate to your audience? (Ex: Are you using casual language in a formal academic research paper?)

7. Organization • Is the text logically organized? • Do you have a clear thesis statement and does your paper follow it? • On that note, does your introduction forecast the contents of your essay? • Do each of your paragraphs have only one main idea?

8. Document Design • Do all the parts of your essay follow proper MLA format (as per ENG 110 requirements)?

9. Development • This will vary from assignment to assignment. • However, in the case of LP2, did you include enough background information? • Is your main claim clear enough to be properly supported or is it too general? • Does all of your evidence tie back into your main claim? • Is your evidence specific enough to be effective?

10. Development (cont.) • Do you still include details that are either unrelated to your main topic or unhelpful to supporting your argument? • If LP2, do you address counterarguments?

11. Readability • Are there any unreasonably long chunks of text? (Ex: page long paragraphs) • Do you have any run-on sentences? • Did your argument skip back and forth within your essay to the point of inducing confusion within your readers? • When reading your essay out loud, were there any sections which made you pause?

12. Lower Order Concerns

13. Sentence Structure • Vary the length and structure of sentences to enhance readability. • Read each sentence out loud. This will help you see if anything is not flowing right and give you ideas on how to reorder the sentence.

14. Punctuation, Word Choice, and Spelling • Proofread your essay line by line. • Use Spell Check. • Avoid word repetition (it hinders readability and makes your prose sound monotonous). • Avoid passive tense (see above).

15. RevisionAdvice • When revising, it’s helpful to focus on one thing at a time. • In other words, revise in rounds. • Ex: • Round 1: Focus and Purpose • Round 2: Audience • Round 3: Etc. • If you try revising for too many things at once, you will miss things.

16. Editing Advice (cont.) • Write a retroactive outline. It’ll help you see if you wandered off at any point in your essay. • Have people read over your essay. They will notice things you didn’t (and each person will notice something different). • Go to the Writing Center for an additional pair of eyes.

17. Editing Advice (cont.) • Don’t wait until the last minute to start editing. • Editing takes time to do properly, so make sure you start early to get the most out of it. • Remember, what you get out of it is what you put into it.

18. Final Portfolio Reminders • Highlight all changes you make (if you’re doing SP2/3, see the Final Portfolio breakdown for more details). • Submit SP1/SP4/SP5/SP6/LP1/LP2 to turnitin.com.

19. Any Questions?