3.1: The Writing Process

Introduction

Many students feel about as comfortable groping their way through the fog as they do writing an essay. They may not be positive what a thesis is, and they may not know where to break their paragraphs. They never know for sure if they have a good paper, and the grade is often a big surprise.  

Further, a common misconception among struggling writers is that some people are naturally good writers, while others are not. This myth is frequently accompanied by a chronic case of the “I can’ts”: “I can’t write, I never could write, and I’ll never be able to write! What’s more, I don’t like to write!” Another misconception, sometimes held by writers whose first language is not English, is that all people who grew up speaking English are naturally good at writing. This is not true; even people who have been speaking English all their lives often struggle with writing.  

Writing does not have to be like walking in the fog. When equipped with a precise set of guidelines and an understanding of the writing process, anyone can learn to write well. No matter how much you have struggled with writing in the past, you can learn to become a successful writer, both in and out of college, by grasping a few fundamentals. You can be confident that you have written a good essay and should receive a pleasing grade. And once the fog dissipates, you might even discover that you enjoy writing.  

It may interest you to know that good grades in English composition classes tend to be directly tied to time spent on a paper. If you will allow yourself several days to work on an essay—with plenty of time to prewrite, organize and outline, write, revise, and edit—you are likely to see your grades rise, often dramatically. Writing is a process; very few people can write an A paper the day before it is due. Most students who have not received good grades in composition courses tend to have a negative view of writing; however, that can change. No matter how frustrated you have been with writing in the past, you can become a skilled writer. You just need to learn a few “tricks of the trade” and invest a little time. Try practicing with some of the tricks and tools provided in this textbook and see just how skilled you can become as a writer.   

Be aware that the process of writing is messy right up until the end when you must turn in the essay.  So don’t shoot for perfection.  Just shoot for doing your very best by the very end.  The process is meant to be where you try out your ideas.  In doing so, it will be messy to start as you play with your ideas and how you want to present them to your readers.  Then as you move through the process and become more familiar with your ideas, they will become clearer and more polished.  

Procrastination  

Procrastination is a key issue for many students.  It is too easy to put things off until the deadline for the essay then scramble like mad to get it done.  Some may say they work better under pressure, but that is not a good strategy, especially if you struggle in a subject.  Some teachers try to help students with procrastination by breaking larger assignments into smaller parts with due dates.  Some writing professors do this with the steps of the writing process that come below.  But sometimes teachers leave it up to students to plan the steps needed then procrastination can derail them.    

To overcome procrastination:  

1. Don’t let fear of failure stop you from starting.  If you don’t start, you are self-sabotaging yourself to fail.  The project will not get smaller but will be more overwhelming as you put it off.  

2. Don’t let expectations of perfection stop you from starting. This is especially true in writing.  It is a messy process and should not be perfect, especially in the beginning. Even professional writers are not perfect; that’s why they have editors, usually a team of people checking their work.  The writing process gives five steps in which to make your essay better and better.  

3. Don't let negative self-talk take over.  Don’t let the voices in your head talk you into putting it off. It is easy to think that you’ll have more time later, or that you will do this other thing first then get to it.  It is also easy to tell ourselves that we aren’t good at writing (or math), so what is the point?  Learn to recognize the things you say to yourself that stop you from doing the work that needs to be done.  Then change what the voices say.  For example, “I need to start now so I can get help when I come to something I don’t get.  If I get this done now, I will have more time for video games later.”  

4. Break the work down into smaller pieces.  If you break an assignment into smaller parts to complete, it is not so overwhelming, and it feels good to get a piece done.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  

a. For example, Monday: brainstorm ideas, Wednesday: create an outline, Friday:  

type a draft, and Sunday: revise and edit your draft.   

5. Schedule time to work on your assignments.  By scheduling time, you are making a commitment to complete it.  It also makes it a bit harder to put off if you have put time in your schedule for it, just like exercise or a dentist appointment.  

6. Give yourself a reward for completing a task.  While it is fulfilling to see a project completed, a reward can motivate you to get it completed.  The type of reward depends on the person but make the size of the reward match the accomplishment.  For example, a walk outside after completing pre-writing or outlining for an essay, but maybe go to a movie for completing the revising and editing of the essay and turning it in early.  

The Steps of the Writing Process  

Writing is complex because it requires a variety of different mental skills. Fortunately, though, these different kinds of thinking tasks do not have to be performed at the same time. Instead, you can separate them into different steps or stages of a larger process. As a matter of fact, writing can be viewed as a series of five main steps, or stages: prewriting, organizing and outlining, drafting/writing, revising, and editing.   

Each step focuses on a particular kind of thinking:   

Step 1: Prewriting. Discover your topic and generate ideas about it.   

Step 2: Organizing and Outlining. Use logic to determine the order in which you should present ideas and create a plan for your paper.  

Step 3: Drafting/Writing. Using your outline as a guide, write the sentences and paragraphs that clearly state and develop your ideas. The first step in writing an essay is understanding the essay's three main parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.   

After you have written an essay, the only things left to do are to revise and edit.  

Step 4: Revising. Reevaluate your paper’s organization and development of ideas and make the necessary improvements. Revising involves looking for places where content can be improved and evaluating your argument and evidence, such as improving coherence or expanding paragraphs by adding more concrete detail.  

Step 5: Editing. Editing is going back over your paper to look for errors in grammar, punctuation and sentence structure.   

Chances are good that as you write, you are already completing all or most of these steps to some extent. However, you may not be devoting enough time and effort to each one, or you may be trying to complete two or more of the steps at the same time. For example, you might be attempting to think of and to organize your thoughts as you are actually writing a draft, or you may be trying to write, revise, and edit simultaneously.   

If you are neglecting or combining the steps, though, you are probably making the writing process more difficult, more time-consuming, and less rewarding for yourself. Because each of the steps requires a different kind of thinking, eliminating a step (such as organizing and outlining) or trying to complete it along with another step makes the whole process more difficult. When you are completing the various mental challenges simultaneously, you also slow yourself down, so the whole process takes more time. What is more, you reduce the overall quality of your writing when you do not give adequate attention to each separate stage.  

Therefore, to make the writing process easier, faster, and more rewarding, always complete all of the five stages and complete each one of them separately. While you work, return to previous stages as necessary. For example, if you realize during the revision stage that you have not fully developed one of your points, return to the prewriting stage to generate more ideas. If during the revision stage you think of another great point that you left out, go back to the organization stage to decide where to insert it. Then go back to the writing stage to actually compose the additional paragraphs.