Nothing can compare to the paper revisions that we receive from those picky or overly strict college professors. Our team at Nerdify constantly deals with these cases and the challenges that come along as we examine the requirements and do our best to understand what is expected. While it is much easier for experts to determine what has caused a problem, an average student will have a difficult time, not knowing how to handle the situation. Therefore, we thought about coming up with a list of tips and tricks that can save your grades and time.
- Do not panic and read the handwritten or typed revision comments twice. Our Nerdify experts always tell students about this crucial point — take any comments with a grain of salt and remember that it is only your professor’s opinion, while there is yours as well. Count to twenty, take a deep breath and read the comments once again. Of course, it does look nasty when you have your entire paragraph crossed with the question mark or anything of a similar matter. Do not let it get to you and just read it twice to see the logic before you come to any conclusions or start working. The trick is to calm down and think with a cold head.
- Contact your college professor if you believe you are right. If you had to write a personal reflection review or an argumentative essay, there may be differences in how you understood the subject. It means that your college professor could have misunderstood you or missed the crucial point. Since we are all human, it is only natural to get into such issues. Do not be afraid to talk to your course instructor and discuss your thoughts and ideas. This is what you have started your studies for. Even if your college professor may think that you are asking too much, they have to help you with your issues and talk about what you have written if they see the problem with that.
- Check your initial instructions before starting the debate. If you have a grading rubric or comments for the task, check twice with these guidelines to make sure that you have followed it right. Nerdify recommends doing so before you start the fight by proving your rightfulness. Pay attention to the numbers, bullet points that had to be included, number of sources, and things like that. It is way too easy to make a mistake and add something extra or forget about the counter-argumentative paragraph that had to be included. According to our experience, it is a frequent issue that brings up paper revisions, which are usually harmless and only require a connecting sentence or clarification.
- Write down the list of problematic issues. If you have odd issues in your paper revision or things have got too personal, the safest bet is writing down the list of issues that your professor sees in your research paper or the task you had to do. Sometimes these picky times are too demanding and it is barely possible to see what is wrong. Therefore, when you write down the list of issues and mention the paragraph, it becomes easier since you put it differently. Now, if you do not really know what is being asked, feel free to message or call the author of the revision and make things clearer for both of you. Stay polite and respectful!
- Formatting and style matter. Another issue that Nerdify encounters in most paper revisions is the lack of proper formatting and academic style. Make sure that you check with the APA or MLA template that you usually have on your online campus. If the header is wrong, just correct things accordingly and it will get things done.
- Weak thesis problem. The worst is when you have a problem with the weak thesis statement. Read it aloud and see if it sounds confident to you. If it does, add another thesis sentence that explains what you wanted to say. If you feel that your thesis is unclear, try to rephrase it and make it clearer and more connected to your topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph. The trick here is to avoid vague statements.
- When they do not get your bright ideas. Unfortunately, there are times when they do not get your ideas or thoughts, which makes most of us feel stressed. If you are trapped in such a situation, make any kind of revision, rewrite at least five sentences where the problem is “seen”. Once the picky professor will see that you have done some work, it might help them to feel satisfied. Sometimes you never know what is wrong, which is why any action or a change will help!
