How Many Drafts are Sufficient? Forum

[mschristinejd15]

I've heard you need about 10 drafts and only then do you allow someone to critique. T or F?

[Dany]

Why on earth would there be a set number? Just write until you have something solid, whether that be a 2nd, 10th, or 20th draft. Having someone review your essay early on can give you ideas to go on, or you can work on something for a long time and get reviews of your almost-final essay. Whatever works for you...

[okfine]

I think the idea behind advising someone to go through 10 drafts is probably thrown out there to save profs a lot of time. I've been thinking about these things as I go through the process:

--What questions do you want the reviewer to answer? If you're concerned about overall angle/tone/approach, it makes sense to send it to someone early, so as to avoid wasting time with a bad idea. If you're worried about spelling and grammar, wait until you've revised it a few times and caught as many of those mistakes as possible.
--What is your relationship with the reviewer? If reviewer is your husband/family/friend, you don't need to worry as much about them feeling imposed upon, and can send them earlier drafts. If it's an old professor whom you haven't seen in years and who is helping you during her summer vacation, you should wait until you've done about as much as you can without her help.
--How many drafts do you plan on doing overall? 10 is a lot. At some point, you have to remember that "the perfect is the enemy of the good," and let it go.

Also, remember that the LSAT is far more important than the PS....

[Na_Swatch]

pretttty sure 10 of these will be sufficient for most people:

--ImageRemoved--

[sumus romani]

F, but depends on how good a writer you are and what you want to say. If you have a compelling reason for going to law school, the PS writes itself. You'll just need someone to proofread it. But if you don't have a compelling reason, then you just have to BS (which is fine--most people do this), but do so really, really well--and this takes draft after draft, etc. Even so, 10 times is a lot.

[thexfactor]

im a bad proof reader. I need like 15-25 drafts.

[rockstar4488]

pi drafts.