TA: Plastic Surgery for Paper A

1. Cut half of the introduction. Find the things parents want to hear, and get rid of the rest.
2. Put contract on the first page instead of the second.
3. Fewer quotes on page 2. Only keep the first quote, or none.
4. Scrap quote at bottom of page 3.
5. The whole second-to-last page just sucks, that's all there is to it. I'm ashamed I wrote that crap.
6. More information is needed about career opportunities if I'm going to keep that argument in the paper. Make room to add a little of that, or else cut out the whole section.
7. Try to not use the same words over and over again.
8. No exaggerations, no numbers that aren't backed up by research.
9. Cut out words that are more than three syllable unless it's really going to make a difference in meaning.
10. Think more about the audience, look at different points, make a list of all my mini-arguments and then start hacking away.
11. Make a lot of the sentences shorter. A lot of them run on and they lose momentum and are a waste of time.
12. The whole paper is disjointed, there's not a good flow, the argument isn't clear because everything is out of order. Again, make an outline or a list and organize the dang thing before rewriting it.