Written communication has two aspects. The first is your choice of words to express your thoughts. The second, which takes place in the mind of the reader, is interpretation – the conversion of your written words into their thoughts. The essential difficulty is in trying to ensure that these aspects are congruent. Studies have shown that readers base many of their most important interpretations about what they are reading on clues they receive from its structure (Gopen and Swan, 1990).

Revising is the process by which you try to optimize writer–reader congruence. Undertaken by the Process Approach, it entails a series of nested steps, each concentrating on successively finer points. The first and broadest step concentrates on the document’s structure and basic style. It includes matters such as organization, logic, accuracy, brevity, and clarity. Coherence is the desired result.

Start with organization and logic

During the process of writing a first draft, most of us include things in one place that should be in another location. We think of additional things as we write. We use words as they come to mind, even though our first thoughts are not necessarily the best and they may not be arranged in the most effective order. This step in the revision begins the process of bringing it all together into an orderly, coherent final product.