Hotspotting
Follow the directions below to revise parts of a section of your essay. Attach the original version and revised version (clearly marked as such), preferably as part of a single document, when you submit this revision assignment; make sure you answer questions 1-3 (at the bottom of this page) as well.
Revisit your draft of Section 1. Reread the draft, marking (underline, highlight, star, etc) places where you think your writing is working. Such places could be sentences that express thought-provoking ideas, strong or startling images, or central tensions, or they could be places to be explored in more detail. These places are your draft’s “hot spots.”
Copy and paste one such hot spot into a new document.
Now write—using the hot spot as a starting point—for at least 15-20 minutes. Don’t worry if you lose track of your original idea; you might be in the process of finding a better one.
Repeat the process 3-4 times.
Now reassemble your writing. You can paste your original writing (with highlights) into this document, if you wish, and then paste the newly revised writing to follow those sections. This exercise can serve as a starting point for revising the entire Section 1, too.
Reflect upon your revision process:
What did you learn about your topic/your text from this process?
Did you pursue a tangential idea? Deepen or extend an original idea? Change your perspective on the topic? Realize that you are really interested in another topic altogether? C
Do you plan to replace your original section with the one you developed using hotspotting? Why or why not?
