The Writing Process

      To write a good academic paper, it is important to follow the writing process. There are several steps in the writing process. The steps can be divided into four parts; pre-writing, writing, reviewing and revising. First, previewing involves thinking about your topic, brainstorming, writing down your thoughts, and organizing your thoughts into an outline. Good writing, like everything else in life always starts with thinking. Second, you write the first draft using your outline. Third, you have someone read your first draft and tell you what they liked and how you can improve your writing. This is called peer review. You review their comments and decide how you are going to change your paper in the second draft.  Finally, you revise your paper and write the second draft,  taking the peer review comments into consideration and your own ideas about how to improve your paper. Then you proofread your paper for any errors in format, grammar, spelling, and punctuation, Now you have finished your second draft and your paper is ready to submit to your instructor. In conclusion, if you have followed all these steps in the writing process, from pre-writing to revising, you will write a good paper that will receive a good grade. Good luck!

The final steps of the writing process

     When you make something, you have to polish and perfect it before you are done.   That is the same in writing. The last steps of the writing process are revising and proofreading.  To revise the first draft of your essay, read it again and ask yourself what could be improved.  Look at the outline that you made before you wrote the first draft and check to see if you followed the outline. Then, ask at least one other person to read your first draft and give you some honest feedback about how you could improve your essay. Then sit down and revise your essay, using all this information to improve it as much as you can. Then read the essay one final time very carefully, checking spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting, and make any necessary changes. When you are satisfied that you have made all the revisions to make your essay as good as it can be, you have finished the final draft. Save it to your flashdrive and print a copy to give to your teacher.

Basic Writing: Prewriting and brainstorming

Thinking is the first step of writing.  Before you start writing an assignment, spend some time thinking about what you are going to write about.  Here are some tips for prewriting and brainstorming activities that will help you write a better essay.

1. Do a "brain dump." Think about what you are going to write about and then write down on a piece of paper all the ideas and words that come to your mind about the topic.  Don't worry about spelling at this point. Just write down as many of your thoughts as possible.

2. Talk about your topic.  Talk to as many people as you can about what you are going to write about and ask them what they think about your ideas.  This will help you have it clear in your mind what you want to write about.  Take some notes on what people tell you.

3. Sleep on it. As you are getting ready to go to bed, read the notes you have written down from steps 1 and 2 and put them on your bed stand next to a pencil or pen. When you go to sleep, your subconscious mind will think about your topic and "work" on it during the night.  If you wake up in the middle of the night with a thought, get up and write it down with your notes.  Go back to sleep.  When you wake up in the morning, look at your list and you will find that your subconscious mind has generated some new ideas while you slept. Write those new ideas down.

4. Review your notes and organize them into an outline for your essay.

Now you are ready to write your essay.