COPS Strategy
The COPS Strategy focuses on editing, and therefore improving, a student's writing. It is a mnemonic for Capitalization, Overall, Punctuation, and Spelling, which are the four things that this strategy prompts students to look for in their editing process.
After a student thinks they have finished with a piece of writing, they are instructed to read through it four separate times, each time looking for one of the four focuses of COPS. This can help them break it down into more manageable chunks so they can do a better job with their editing.
Capitalization- The first time they are reading through their work they will focus on making sure there is correct capitalization. Have them ask themselves:
Have them ask themselves:
By teaching students to check for these things before they hand in a paper, their writing has great potential to improve. This can help students to turn in their best possible paper and reduce the amount of errors which their paper contains.
After a student thinks they have finished with a piece of writing, they are instructed to read through it four separate times, each time looking for one of the four focuses of COPS. This can help them break it down into more manageable chunks so they can do a better job with their editing.
Capitalization- The first time they are reading through their work they will focus on making sure there is correct capitalization. Have them ask themselves:
- Is the first word of every sentence capitalized?
- Are proper nouns capitalized?
- Are there other words that I have capitalized that I shouldn't?
- Does it look neat?
- Is there enough or too much space between words?
- Does it make sense?
- Did I use complete sentences?
- Is there punctuation at the end of every sentence?
- Does the punctuation I used make sense?
- Do I use other punctuation, such as quotation marks, correctly?
Have them ask themselves:
- Did I spell all the words correctly?
- Are there any words I should check that I am unsure about?
By teaching students to check for these things before they hand in a paper, their writing has great potential to improve. This can help students to turn in their best possible paper and reduce the amount of errors which their paper contains.
Works Cited
COPS editing strategy (n.d.). In Examples of Learning Strategies . Retrieved September 26, 2014
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