Rocket has cut his explainer into strips and spread them across the Signal Desk.
"It is in the wrong order," he says. "The folding step is before the printing step. And I said the same thing twice."
Raven slides two strips past each other. "So move this one. Remove that one. What do you notice is missing?"
Rocket squints. "Nobody knows how many copies we make. Add a sentence."
"And this word?" Raven taps a strip. "Stuff."
"Reword it," Rocket says. "Booklets."
Nova hovers above the strips, her light making a straight line of them. "Four moves," she says. "Add, remove, move, reword. Every revision is one of those."
Rocket tapes the strips back together in their new order. It reads like a different page.
Every revision is one of four moves. Add what the reader needs. Remove what repeats or wanders. Move what is out of order. Reword what is vague or flat.
Raven thinks aloud over Rocket's explainer: "The reader needs the number of copies, so add. The folding step is told twice, so remove. Printing comes before folding, so move. Stuff is vague, so reword."
Work on paper if you can. Cutting a draft into strips makes moving easy, and a strip you set aside is removed without being lost.
Rocket's fast way: read the draft once and make every move you see at once. Raven's slow way: read it four times, one move per read. Both work. Pick the one that fits the piece.
| About the two drafts | True or false? |
|---|---|
| The first draft tells the folding step twice. | ? |
| The revised draft uses First, Second, Third and Last. | ? |
| The revised draft keeps the line about liking the skate ramp. | ? |
| The first draft gives the number of copies. | ? |
Four moves, one clearer page. Tomorrow, in Writing Lab, we edit for conventions: capitals, punctuation and spelling.