Revising and editing on TNReady English I and II: complete overview - Tennessee EOC

Revising and editing is one of the core areas tested on the TNReady English I and II EOC, and it is assessed twice: directly through draft-passage items, and again in your own writing subpart essay. This site breaks the area into five dot points. This overview maps them, how effectiveness and correctness differ and connect, and how to study them.

The five revising and editing skills

Each skill is part of improving a draft, either its effectiveness or its correctness.

• Revising for clarity and organization. Transitions, logical order, unity, and sharpening vague writing. See revising for clarity and organization.
• Editing for grammar and usage. Agreement, reference, tense, and modifiers, and the clean-fix rule. See editing for grammar and usage.
• Sentence boundaries and combining. Fixing fragments, run-ons, and splices, and combining for variety. See sentence boundaries and combining.
• Word choice and precision. Precise, concise, formal wording and confused words. See word choice and precision.
• Revising and editing item types. How the questions are presented and how to read them. See revising and editing item types.

The thread through every skill: effectiveness versus correctness

The organizing distinction in this module is revising (effectiveness) versus editing (correctness). Revising for clarity and organization, combining choppy sentences for variety, and choosing precise, formal words all improve how well the writing works. Editing for grammar and usage, and fixing sentence boundaries, all make the writing correct. The item-types skill teaches you to read the stem and tell which a question is asking. The reason the module matters twice over: the correctness skills protect the writing rubric's Conventions and Clarity of Language dimension, and the effectiveness skills feed the Statement of Purpose, Focus, and Organization dimension. Revising and editing others' drafts is rehearsal for your own essay.

How the items are tested

• Multiple choice: choose the best revision (transition, order, unity) or the correct edit (agreement, tense, punctuation).
• Technology-enhanced items: click the sentence with an error, or choose from a drop-down inside the draft.
• The essay: the same conventions and word-choice and organization skills, scored on the writing rubric.

How to study revising and editing

1. Build a proofreading checklist for correctness: agreement, reference, tense, modifiers, boundaries, punctuation.
2. Develop a reviser's eye for effectiveness: transitions, order, unity, precise and formal word choice.
3. Read the stem to tell a revising question from an editing one, then apply the right standard.
4. Use the clean-fix rule: the correct edit fixes the error without adding a new one.
5. Apply the skills to your essay, since they are scored there too.

For the official exam materials

TDOE publishes practice tests and information on the ELA assessment and the Tennessee Academic Standards. See the TCAP English Language Arts page and the Tennessee academic standards page. Always study from the current released materials, because the item types and standards are set by TDOE.