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Teacher Tips and Answers

Revising Nonfiction Reviews

Once you finish a first draft of your review, set it aside awhile. When you return to it, you can see it with a fresh perspective. That's what revising means—seeing your work with new eyes. When you revise, you look at your writing from your reader's perspective to make sure it includes interesting ideas and reads smoothly. These activities will help you revise.

Revising to Replace General Details

If parts of your writing sound uninteresting, they may contain too many general words and details. Revise those parts by including more specific words and details. The specific details could come from the work itself or your own thinking. For example, instead of stating something is "good" or "interesting" provide details about why it is good or interesting.

  • General words: After a bit, Superman got really popular.
  • Specific words: After a few months, Superman's popularity erupted.
  • General detail: He imagined having superpowers would finally get the attention of the girls in his class.
  • Specific detail: He imagined having the power to jump over tall buildings would finally get the attention of the girls in his class.

Revise for specific details.

Closely read and review your first draft to complete the revising tasks. Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.

  1. Find at least two general words (good, interesting, boring) and replace them with specific words. (Ask a partner or look in a thesaurus for help.)

  3. Find one general detail about the book or article, and replace it with a specific detail from the work. (Consider replacing it with something a person said or did.)

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