1. CHAPTER 12 Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

2. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay When you revise your essay, you do two things: Examine your essay for ways to strengthen its content, organization, and wording Examine your essay for Edited American English: grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure Go over your essay twice, because revising content is a very different task from revising grammatical errors.

3. Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay Make sure your essay has the following traits: The whole essay is relevant to the essay topic. The introduction is clearly written and has a thesis statement. The essay has three body paragraphs, and each has a topic sentence. The body paragraphs have enough supporting details.

4. Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing: Give specific reasons, examples, and details to support the thesis. (Continued) A tax decrease is needed because people need more buying power to keep up with inflation. Nearly tripping on the doorsill, a disheveled drunk in a rumpled business suit staggered into the Starlight Hotel’s bar at midnight for one last shot of whiskey before stumbling off to bed.

5. Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing: Show, don’t tell. (Continued) Showing: My three-year-old daughter danced around the room, clapping her hands and laughing. Telling: My daughter was delighted.

6. Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing: Use transitions between sentences and paragraphs. (Continued) Small towns may be quiet and peaceful. However, I prefer the excitement and variety of a big city.

7. Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing: synonyms tighteningUse synonyms to avoid repetition and tightening to avoid wordiness. (Continued) Wordy: In this day and age, computers are a significant part of our daily lives. Tight: Computers are now an important part of our daily lives.

8. Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay Use the this checklist to make sure you’ve followed the standards of Edited American English (EAE): Is the first word of every sentence capitalized? Are proper nouns capitalized? Are the sentences complete? Does each one have a subject and a verb? Do subjects and verbs agree? Does every sentence end with end punctuation? Are commas used correctly? Are all the words spelled correctly?

9. THE END Chapter Review QuizGED Practice Quiz Practice the skills you learned in this chapter by taking the Chapter Review Quiz or the GED Practice Quiz. CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.