כאשר העדות אומרת לא

Revision is written into the objective

• Textual evidence may require revision to an interpretation and a line of reasoning if the evidence does not sufficiently support the initial interpretation.
• So changing your mind is not a failure of planning — the CED expects it.
• The failure is keeping a reading the evidence has stopped supporting.

A first reading is a draft map; new evidence is allowed to move the road.

How you find out

• The signal is usually a paragraph that will not come out right.
• You have the quotation, you have the claim, and the sentence connecting them keeps needing a however.
• That resistance is the evidence telling you the reading is too strong or the wrong shape.

Revise the claim, not the evidence

• The wrong repair is to reach for a different quotation that fits the claim you had.
• The right repair is to narrow, qualify or reshape the claim until it fits what the text actually shows.
• A narrowed claim you defend beats a wide one you argue around.

Revising mid-exam is cheaper than it feels

• Under time pressure the instinct is to push on, because rewriting feels expensive.
• But a thesis can usually be repaired by changing four or five words in one sentence.
• Crossing out one clause and continuing costs a minute; defending an unsupportable reading costs the essay.

A revision check

• When a paragraph resists: is the evidence wrong for the claim, or the claim wrong for the text?
• If the claim: narrow it, qualify it, or change its verb — then reread the thesis.
• Then check that the earlier paragraphs still serve the revised reading.