I chose to read Chapter 11 of “They Say/I Say”, titled “Using the Templates to Revise”. This chapter discusses how to put all aspects of the chapters before into your essay when thinking about the process of revision. It offers a checklist-like approach using the central idea from each chapter before to pose questions making sure you’ve incorporated every aspect into your paper. For example one of the topic questions is “Have you introduced any naysayers?”. This is to make sure you’ve “acknowledged any objections to your argument”, and if not then it is helpful to think about the other perspectives on your topic and how to incorporate that as a naysayer. It also gives an example of a student’s revised essay who followed the templates that this chapter provided. I chose this chapter because I often feel stuck when it comes to revising my essays because I don’t really know where to start or what to fix. I know it needs to be fixed but I have a hard time figuring out what exactly those revisions are. This chapter offers a really good overview of the entire revision process.

As I revise my own paper I plan to follow these guidelines as sort of a formula to follow. This will help me distinguish what I need to add, take out, and fix in general. The questions in this chapter are really specific to each aspect of an essay which is helpful. Although we did peer reviews in class I still felt unsure about what to fix when it came to revising, and this chapter helped a lot by clearing up the fuzzy areas in my ongoing paper. It is a good place to start especially being in the position I am in where I don’t know where to begin.