How to Write Better Essays

274 Revision

demanded the best product irrespective of where it was produced.

Architecture, clothes, fashions, even the ways of solving problems,

were increasingly the same. Except where they were consciously

prolonged, national styles slowly faded. Even in the 1930s it was

already apparent that a time was approaching when it would be

impossible to tell one country’s towns and cities from another. Add

to this the impact of dance music, the cinema and the wireless, even

the cheap recreational literature that more and more drew its inspi-

ration from the US, and it became clear to a growing number that

their social and cultural identity, once a source of patriotic pride and

a sense of belonging, was disappearing beneath a uniform, cos-

mopolitan culture, that was constantly changing.

Fifth revision – revise by ear

Finally, your last revision! This appears to come back to your first,

because you’re reading your work through to see how it sounds. You’re

interested in its flow and rhythm. Hopefully, it should read like talk in

print, with light effortless prose that glides across the page with a pace

and rhythm that holds the reader ’s attention.

Unfortunately, most of us get so close to what we write and the

thought patterns our sentences represent, that we find it’s difficult to

read it as another person would. If you have this problem, ask a friend

to listen while you read it out aloud or, better still, ask your friend to

read it out aloud to you.

This is the best test of all: if it doesn’t come across fluently to

someone who has never seen or heard it before, then it will need to be

changed. This reading will certainly identify clumsy sentences or where

you might have dealt with your ideas in an illogical order. The other

advantage of this is that, because you’re not reading it yourself, you’ll

be free to note where in your work it was difficult to understand the

meaning of what was written. Failing this, if you haven’t got a com-

passionate friend, or you’re afraid to risk your friendship in this way,

then record it on a cassette and play it back to yourself as if you were

listening to it for the first time.

But beyond the question of whether your work can be read and under-

stood easily by someone reading it for the first time, think about one

other thing. You may want to change the pace of your work at certain

times in order to make your points more effectively. You may want to

speed up or slow down in some sections by varying the length of sen-

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