As a student writer, you might choose to read your work aloud or print the work in hard copy to read in a different medium. Close to the end of the process is a good time to conduct a self-directed assessment to note whether the points made, the organization, the tone, and the style of the work are helping you achieve goals for the project, whether personal, professional, or academic. You might think of this process as a type of reverse outlining, as you go back to the basic structure of your writing. Based on your rubric or evaluative criteria, create points to check on your own.

Although some texts may have been written years ago, they live in the present. This expression means that when you analyze a literary text such as a story, play, poem, or novel, you use a form of the present tense in your discussion. Narration in the story may be in the past tense—the narrator tells the story as though it has already happened—but your discussion of the literary work is done in the present tense. Characters do this or say that. The leaves fall or the wind is howling, even though in the text, the leaves fell and the wind was howling. Your discussion nevertheless remains in the present tense. Also, when discussing the author in relation to the literary text, use the present tense, even if the author is no longer living or wrote the text in the past.