The Writing Process
Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. It is known as a recursive process. While you are revising, you might have to return to the prewriting step to develop and expand your ideas.
Drafting
Prewriting
- Prewriting is anything you do before you write a draft of your document. It includes thinking, taking notes, talking to others, brainstorming, outlining, and gathering information (e.g., interviewing people, researching in the library, assessing data).
- Although prewriting is the first activity you engage in, generating ideas is an activity that occurs throughout the writing process.
- Drafting occurs when you put your ideas into sentences and paragraphs. Here you concentrate upon explaining and supporting your ideas fully. Here you also begin to connect your ideas. Regardless of how much thinking and planning you do, the process of putting your ideas in words changes them; often the very words you select evoke additional ideas or implications.
- Don’t pay attention to such things as spelling at this stage.
- This draft tends to be writer-centered: it is you telling yourself what you know and think about the topic.
Revising
- Revision is the key to effective documents. Here you think more deeply about your readers’ needs and expectations. The document becomes reader-centered. How much support will each idea need to convince your readers? Which terms should be defined for these particular readers? Is your organization effective? Do readers need to know X before they can understand Y?
- At this stage you also refine your prose, making each sentence as concise and accurate as possible. Make connections between ideas explicit and clear.
Editing
- Check for such things as grammar, mechanics, and spelling. The last thing you should do before printing your document is to spell check it.
- Don’t edit your writing until the other steps in the writing process are complete.
References
Think and decide
Make sure you understand your assignment. See Research Papers or Essays
Decide on a topic to write about. See Narrow your Topic
Consider who will read your work. See Audience and Voice
Brainstorm ideas about the subject. See Prewriting Strategies
Write
Put the information you researched into your own words. See Paraphrase and Summary
Write sentences and paragraphs even if they are not perfect.
Read what you have written and judge if it says what you mean. See Thesis Statements
Write some more. See Incorporating References
Read it again.
Write some more.
Read it again.
Write until you have said everything you want to say about the topic.
Make it better
Read what you have written again. See Revising Content and Revising Organization
Rearrange words, sentences or paragraphs.
Take out or add parts.
Do more research if you think you should.
Replace overused or unclear words.
Read your writing aloud to be sure it flows smoothly.
Make it correct
Be sure all sentences are complete. See Editing and Proofreading
Correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
Change words that are not used correctly or are unclear.
Make sure you are using the appropriate Style formatting.
APA Formatting
Chicago Style Formatting
MLA Formatting
Have someone else check your work.
Donald M. Murray, "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product" The Leaflet (November 1972), rpt. in Cross-Talk in Comp Theory, 2nd ed., ed. Victor Villanueva, Urbana: NCTE, 2003.
Rohman, D. Gordon (1965). "Pre-Writing the Stage of Discovery in the Writing Process". College Composition and Communication. 16 (2): 106–112.
Kent, Thomas (1999). "Introduction". Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing-Process Paradigm. Thomas Kent, ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1–6 [1].
Reither, James A. (1985). "Writing and Knowing: Toward Redefining the Writing Process". College English. 47.6: 620-628.
Flower, Linda S., and John R. Hayes. "Problem-Solving Strategies and the Writing Process". College English, vol. 39, no. 4, 1977, pp. 449–461. JSTOR,