Hamlet Essay Editing Assignment

If writing an essay were compared to building a house, then revision would involve knocking down walls and rebuilding them in a better location or installing windows where there were none. In contrast, editing would be like painting a room a different color, adding furniture, and greasing the hinges on doors. Editing does not involve major changes in ideas so much as minor changes which help improve the readability or clarity of the ideas that are already in place.

Your assignment for Writing Portfolio is to edit your Hamlet essay. Your final edit should attend to the following details. Spaces have been provided for you to “check off” each item as you complete it.

1.       ______Follow MLA formatting guidelines for the heading, header, title, margins, and in-text citations.

2.       ______Check for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.

3.       ______Read aloud to check for sentence fluency. Vary sentence length, using some short and some long sentences. Don’t start all your sentences the same way; rather, vary the way you combine dependent and independent clauses.

4.       ______Make sure you have no sentence fragments or run-ons.

5.       ______Use transition sentences between all the body paragraphs to help your reader understand how each new paragraph is connected to the main idea of the previous paragraph.

6.       ______Use transition words and phrases between and within sentences to help ideas connect.

7.       ______Properly introduce dialogue. In most instances you should use a dialogue tag such as “He says,” before a quotation. Occasionally, if it is very clear who is going to be speaking from your context sentence, you may use a colon to introduce a quotation.

Example— After the king and Polonius are positioned to spy on Ophelia and Hamlet, Hamlet enters the scene and gives his famous monologue: “To be or not to be…”

8.       ______Use ALL of my written comments on your essay draft. You must account for every single mark I have made on your paper.

9.       ______Make sure every pronoun (they, he, him, them, she, it, that, etc.) clearly refers to a specific noun. If your reader could possibly mistake it, clarify it. (If your reader could possibly mistake the meaning of a pronoun, then substitute a noun or phrase to make the meaning evident.)

As you follow these editing guidelines, the house you have built for your brilliant ideas will become more accessible and appealing to your readers who will feel comfortable to come inside and make themselves at home. This final edit of your essay is due on Tuesday, November 12.