{"id":3137,"date":"2010-09-02T19:11:59","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T02:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=3137"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:47:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:47:48","slug":"how-to-revise-toefl-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/how-to-revise-toefl-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Revise TOEFL Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nRevisions to TOEFL Writing responses should be made based on priorities<\/em>. You want to revise the most important aspects of the writing first, and then move on to smaller “proofreading” errors (punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc…) if you have time.<\/p>\n

What are the highest priorities (and lowest) when you revise TOEFL Writing?<\/h2>\n

ETS’s\u00a0rubrics for TOEFL Writing have the same scoring priorities you’ll find in a regular college writing class. The “broader” aspects of writing– sometimes called\u00a0higher order concerns<\/em> (HOCs) are the most importnat and hold the most point weight.<\/p>\n

HOCs include the introduction and conclusion, paragraph structure, transitions, arguments, and supporting details.<\/p>\n

The official TOEFL Writing score guides<\/a> put less importance on\u00a0lower order concerns<\/em> (LOCs) that don’t directly deal with the deeper structure and meaning of a Writing response. LOCs are things such as spelling, grammar, sentence structure, word choice, and so on.<\/p>\n

A TOEFL scorer will only take away points for LOCs if these smaller mistakes are so bad that they “obscure meaning” or make your writing less clear.\u00a0In other words, lower order concerns aren’t important in TOEFL writing unless they’re serious enough to noticeably impact the HOCs.<\/p>\n

Sample TOEFL Writing essay, with errors that need revising<\/h2>\n

To give you an example of how these HOC\/LOC priorities are used in revising an actual TOEFL essay, let’s take a look at the first two paragraphs of an example Integrated Writing. This response contains both high priority and low priority flaws. For now, we’ll focus just on higher order concern revisions, since\u00a0it’s best to take care of the most important stuff first.<\/p>\n

This example will be based on a model Integrated Writing response<\/a> I showed you in an earlier post. But I’ve added in some errors and mistakes. (The original audio and reading passage for this task is here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

TOEFL Integrated Writing essay, with mistakes and errors:<\/em><\/p>\n