Is my Korean research paper draft ready for final revision?
I'm writing a senior capstone on Korean language policy and my draft is about 4,500 words. My advisor wants me to tighten the argument and improve the citation format, which should follow Chicago style. I've already reorganized the sections but I'm not sure if the literature review is cohesive enough. The deadline is in three weeks and I need concrete revision steps.
1 Answer
Your draft is very close to being ready for that final polish, but you should focus on a targeted structural review of your literature review and a systematic citation check before you declare it completely finished. Since you have three weeks left, you are in a great position to transition from heavy rewriting to fine-tuning. The key is ensuring your literature review does not just summarize past research on Korean language policy, but actively builds a narrative that justifies your own capstone thesis. If your advisor wants a tighter argument, they are likely looking for a clearer thread connecting your sources to your final conclusions. Imagine you are analyzing the historical shift in South Korea's hanja policies. Instead of just listing what different scholars wrote in chronological order, you want to group those sources by their ideological perspectives, showing how earlier debates set the stage for your specific research question. Once that thematic flow feels solid, you can transition into the technical editing phase. For Chicago style, this means doing a dedicated pass where you look at nothing but your footnotes and bibliography. It is incredibly easy to miss a comma or misplace an italicized title when you are also trying to think about the actual content of your paper, so separating these tasks will save you a lot of mental energy. To get this draft over the finish line, start by printing out your literature review and highlighting the transition sentences between paragraphs to ensure they show a clear relationship between the cited works. Next, create a quick checklist of Chicago style rules for your specific source types, like Korean-language journal articles or translated books, and verify them one by one. Finally, schedule a brief check-in with your advisor or your campus writing center next week to present your tightened argument before you do the absolute final proofread.
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