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1. Introduction and methods
The revision of assignments is a crucial part of the writing process, and in a broader sense of language learning as well. It is the re-seeing of a piece of writing with the intention of improvement. The main purpose of revision is to make the work readable and as clear for the reader as possible.

In this paper I aim to draw students’ attention to the importance of looking through their drafts before handing in the final versions , however tiring and time-consuming it is. My method is to give an analysis of the stages of revision through the description of the revising tasks that occurred in the Writing and Research Skills course (spring semester 1997) at Janus Pannonius University (JPU). My research is grouped around four tasks: the tape recording of an essay, an in-class essay about the usefulness of revising, a peer editing task and the revision of an essay written by the whole group.

2. Discussion
Revision is not a separate stage, but an integral part of the writing procedure, since "writing is 95 percent revision” (Hubbard, 1988, p 104) (1). We simply cannot go on writing without going back to the sentences already put down. This is a natural form of revision, but with patience it can be further improved to a consciously organized and effective process, which needs always less of our time and energy, since our revising skill improves with practice (Hammond, 1985) (2).

When writing the first version of an essay, we may easily make mistakes due to inattentiveness , which may be the result of our too fast flow of thoughts. Revision concerns not only the correction of errors, but it also helps in adding new ideas and perspectives to the original ones by considering the text from a different point of view.

2.1. Tape recording task
An unusual but truly interesting and challenging task of the course was the tape recording of an essay, which entailed a special form of revising. We had three options among which we could choose. These were the expanding of an earlier assignment: the learning experience, the description of a metaphor of essay writing and the designing of a freely chosen place at the university. This task would have been a usual one, had it not been about recording it on a tape. By reading out the text we reached the effect as if it were alive. We had to pay extra attention to the way we read: to the intonation and clear pronunciation, as an essay on tape makes a greater impression on the audience than a written one, which does not express that much of the author’s personality. This is because human voice is more vivid and powerful than written thoughts.

Tape recording also helped to look at our own sentences as though they were completely strange, which is an excellent technique of revision. The slight distortion of our voice caused by the tape recorder contributed to this effect. Considering our writings from an alien perspective, we were able to have a more critical eye on our essays. Had we not tried to apply this method, we would have tended to be partial to ourselves and would have ignored our weaknesses in writing. The alienating effect can be further increased by reading out the essay in a strange accent ( Hubbard, 1985 ) (3).

While composing our essays, we had to keep three main aspects in mind. First of all, we had to have a clear purpose and message to the readers, as there is no good writing without a definite aim. We also had to have a content that was relevant to the theme. The last aspect according to which the essays were evaluated concerned how well our message reached our audience. Revision helped us to improve our writings in all these fields, which are more abstract than for example the correction of grammar mistakes. Whereas grammar mistakes are obvious, the quality of coherence, focusing and questions whether the essay contains enough fresh information or is specific enough are not at all so easy to measure ( Hammond, 1985 ) (4).

Having finished our first drafts, we had to get to the first stage of conscious revising, which was the hardest. This was the admission that our work needed improvement. The correction of grammatical mistakes and the clearing up of spelling and punctuation we felt natural, but for example to admit that some parts of our essays were redundant was much more difficult. Once we had put down our thoughts on paper, we tended to feel that they closely belonged to us , since we had worked hard on them in order to be able to give them a form. But once we managed to get ourselves over the first difficult steps, we could move on to the next stage, which was the correction of surface problems: bad accuracy, which involved punctuation, spelling and grammar errors. Although bad grammar , faulty punctuation and poor spelling are surface problems, it does not mean that they are of minor importance, since they distract the reader's attention from the essay. Bad word choice may have a similar effect. As we cannot always find the appropriate word that expresses exactly what we intend to say, sometimes we are obliged to use words we are not satisfied with. But these distort our original message. Cliches and fat expressions also reduce the quality of our essays, since they are out of fashion and worn out (Hammond, 1985 ) (5).

Besides the reseeing of surface problems there is a deeper level of revision as well. This is the rethinking our paper, which includes the reconsidering of paragraph and essay organization, the coherence and logic of our thoughts and the focusedness of our theme ( Hammond, 1985 ) (6). When deeply involved in our thoughts we could easily write sentences that were logical and perfectly clear for us, but not that clear for the reader. But when listening to our own voice reading out the for us well known sentences, we could see the essay as a whole and could spot out inconsistencies.

As for coherence, we had to examine how sentences led to others, how paragraphs held together and how the whole essay was constructed. We had to take into consideration that the title as the head of the essay is of great importance, since it gives the clue what the essay is going to be about. While writing, we had to remember that always focusing on the theme is needed for a good understanding.

Besides accuracy and the organization of the essay, revision deals with some other aspects as well, which are not strictly bound to the body of the text, but which investigate how the writer managed to make an impact on her readers ( Hammond, 1985 ) (7). By recording our essays we realized how essential it is to get access to the audience and to affect it in a positive way, since an essay which has no bridge to the readers is both senseless and lifeless. While simply putting down our thoughts, we tend to forget that we have an audience. It is perhaps tape recording that puts the greatest emphasis on the importance of taking into consideration the audience.

2.2. An in-class paper about revision
The next task we did in connection with revision was the writing of an in-class paper, whose theme was the usefullness of revising and tape-recording. It was not a whole essay because we had to write only two paragraphs. We dealt with the topic not only in theory, but we applied it in practice as well. A week after we had written those two paragraphs, we got back our papers so that we could read through them again in search for mistakes. Probably all of us came across some errors which we had not realize or added some new aspects which had not occured to us a week earlier. When we finished our drafts, we were happy to be ready, and had neither enough patience nor enough time to look for mistakes. But the effectiveness of revision is not only the question of patience, it also depends on how much time takes place between finishing the drafts and revising them. Mistakes seem much more salient if we put our writings aside for a while and go back to them later. This is probably because for example in a week’s time we do not remember our original ideas and purpose perfectly and are able to regard our works more as if they were someone else’s ( Hubbard, 1988 ) (8).

The next stage of revision after refining the raw material is editing, which is „ getting a text ready for readers” (Hubbard, 1988, p 186) (9). There is no strict boundary between revision and editing, since editing includes the deeper levels of revising. There is still a major difference between the two phenomena: editing is usually done by an outsider , because corrections made by editing are over the limit of the author’s ability to realize her own weaknesses. The editing outsider should be an interested but uninformed reader because this way can she give the best pieces of advice. A writer does not always assume well what the readers’ background knowledge is. What is obvious for the author may not be that obvious for the audience, so the omission of some information may be a great obstacle of comprehension. Unless the writing provides a sufficient amount of information about the theme, the reader can easily get lost while reading the vague text (Hubbard, 1988) (10).

2.3. Peer-editing
Our editing work during the course was a peer- editing task. Every student had to exchange her essay with someone else’s and work on it. These writings were about a purposely badly-written essay. Each editor had the task to correct the mistakes occurring in the text and add some useful comments. These could be both positive or negative , but by all means had to have the intention of help for improvement. Reading our peer’s critics might have hurt us first and not all corrections and comments might have been relevant, but it was still worth it to appreciate and pay attention to them, as „nothing works as well as another mind engaged in the task” ( Hubbard, 1988, p 178 ) (11). Though our editors were students , we could still profit from their opinions, which could be as precious as the teacher’s, since getting to know other ways of thinking and points of view enriches us incredibly, even if we do not agree with them.

Although writing is mostly an individual matter, the collaboration among students is helpful (Hammond, 1988 ) (12). On the one hand, getting to know others’ experience may serve us as a salutary example. On the other hand, it may reinforce us that the way we write is not that bad, or at least better than that person’s is whose mode of writing we got to know.

2.4. Group-writing activity
Our task with the essay written by the whole group was a combination of revising and editing. As all of us wrote a separate paragraph on computer, to which only the topic sentence was given, our efforts did not result in a whole essay at once, since a heap of paragraphs does not make a coherent writing. Our task with this raw material was to make a whole essay out of it. It was not an easy assignment, since on the one hand, we wrote in different styles, which may not have coincided, and on the other hand, there was no balance among the paragraphs, since some were dense and some contained detailed description. So besides correcting errors that violated accuracy, we also had to attempt to reach a healthy balance among the many separate parts, and to construct a unified style. By adding the missing introduction and conclusion to the main body of the text, we gave a frame to the essay.

When due to our hard work we could see a whole essay emerging from the bunch of paragraphs, we tended to consider it more and more as if it were our own. Sometimes we had difficulties in deciding whether to change others’ sentences or not . They may not have been wrong, but they were not in accordance with our taste. As a result, sometimes we rewrote whole paragraphs because we felt we were able to write far better ones instead, but other times we hardly changed anything, as they met our requirements or even surpassed them. By reading others’ paragraphs we could gain new ideas , which threw a different light on our topic and enriched our perspectives.

3. Conclusion
All the colourful and interesting revision tasks of the course were of great value, since they were aimed not only to prove to students that revision is useful, but also to shape their attitude towards revising by encouraging them to consider it not a drag, but an enjoyable challenge.