Hi everyone, I'm Kava and today we're going to talk about an important rule of editing your papers, the hierarchy of writing concerns. While editing your papers, you might notice that there are different points to take care of. Does the order for my paragraphs make sense? Have I used appropriate words? Is that a comma splice? Do I have a good thesis statement? Have I cited properly? Which can be overwhelming and confusing to look for all these points while proofreading your paper? Which ones should you pay more attention to and what if you miss some? A good strategy to manage the process of editing your draft is to edit in different stages. Writing concerns can be classified in a number of groups and you can focus on one group at a time. This statement of writing concerns, which is inspired by a model from Purdue University's online writing lab, shows the hierarchy of writing issues with the more important and general writing issues at the bottom and the more mechanical aspects on top. You can use this to edit your paper in rounds by working your way up from the base of the pyramid. At the bottom we have the most general writing concerns like purpose, arguments and organization. At this stage you check your line of argument and make sure your paper is actually doing what it's supposed to do. What is your research question? Is your paper effectively answering that question? Check your line of argument and make sure it makes sense. Have you organized your points clearly? Does your paper follow the outline you drew in the beginning? If you do not have an outline, make one based on what you have written and see if it shows a logical line of argument. Repeat this on the level of paragraphs and make sure each paragraph has a clear main idea which is supported by relevant supporting sentences. At this stage you are examining the overall unity and coherence of your argument. So do not waste your time by making changes to smaller issues like grammar and spelling. You might end up deleting whole sections of your paper and it will be a waste of time to work on details of a section that will not be in the final draft. Once you're happy with the basic aspects of your paper, you can start the second round of editing in which you will focus on sentence level issues. Find and fix grammar errors and try to improve your work choice and punctuation. Again, you do not have to worry about spelling and citation at this stage since your draft still might change. Once you are done with this middle phase, you can begin the third and last stage of editing your paper. Now, you have a draft that is solid in terms of arguments, organization and the mechanics of the sentences. The only thing left is to proofread for typos spelling errors and to put in your index citations. You can ask a friend or a CAC tutor to read over your paper to give you feedback, but hopefully, with your multi-layered editing, you must have caught the most important errors in your own writing. Adios and happy editing. To learn more tips and tricks to help improve your academic communication skills, visit the University of Victoria Center for Academic Communication website for workshops and other resources. We can also book an appointment with one of our tutors by clicking the link in the description below. Good luck and see you soon!