Editing Logs

In my composition classes, I ask all students to write an Editing Log after I give them a grade. Here a the steps:

1. Read allof my comments on your paper.
   1. Right-hand margin comments focus on the content of your writing;
   2. Left-hand margin comments focus on your style or grammar;
   3. End comments give an overview of what you’ve written;
   4. The grading rubric shows your strengths and weaknesses (this is pretty important).
2. Write a 1-paragraph summary of all of my comments. What area did I say was the strongest (look at the rubric)? What was the weakest? Don’t just focus on the grammar.
3. Write a 1-paragraph plan that describes how you would approach this paper differently in the future. What process would be different? What would you change?
4. Print the paper AND fix errors ON THE PAGE WITH A PEN OR PENCIL.
5. If I asked you to complete exercises (links below), finish the exercises FIRST and then fix the errors on the page.
6. If you’re confused at any stage of the process or need help, please contact me!

Exercise Links Below:

Proofreading Exercises — Please download the appropriate set of exercises from this page.

Preposition Exercises –A set of exercises (and answers) for prepositions.

Quotations — Some information on quotation marks. There’s a menu on the left-hand side to check out, too.

Owl Exercises — Additional resources and grammar exercises. A great site!

OWL ESL Section — Resources for ESL students!

• Articles (a/an/the) –ESL students often need to work on their use of articles.

Sentence Combining Exercises — Please download the appropriate set of exercises from this page.

Note: Thanks to Heidi Goen-Salter for sharing her version of this assignment!