Kelly S. "Pre-writing, Writing, and now Re-writing, Oh My!"

To rewrite a document, one must first write the document. When writing a document, it is the writer’s job to have a purpose for the writing. Where there’s a purpose, there will be an audience; the audience includes all of the people who will be reading your document. Once the document is written, it is ready for revision and considered for rewriting.
Rewriting a document entails a great alteration to the writing; it can be a change in purpose, or a complete change in audience (Dorbrin, Keller, Weisser, 2008). Rewriting for a different purpose or audience may change the voice, the length, and the whole format of the document. Rewriting a document can also include writing different documents to fit into a whole project; such as writing a chapter in a book before writing the summary of the chapter. The writer takes important points from the chapter to create a smaller version that concludes those main points.
Some guidelines for rewriting a document includes working from a larger document to a smaller one, such as writing the more complex document first, then taking main points to write a shorter, simpler version for another audience or purpose. As Dorbrin et al., (2008) state in chapter 10, writing for a new audience will usually change the purpose of the document, thus the writer will need to re-examine the organization and format of the writing to be sure that it fits the language for the audience (288). When reformatting the document, be sure not to exclude any valuable information that is crucial to all professional documents.

References:
Dorbrin, S. I., Keller, C. J., & Weisser, C. R. 2008. Technical Communication: In the Twenty-First Century. Upper Sadle, NJ. Pearson Prentice Hall.