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The Writing Process | 5 Steps with Examples & Tips

Published on April 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on December 8, 2023.

Good academic writing requires effective planning, drafting, and revision.

The writing process looks different for everyone, but there are five basic steps that will help you structure your time when writing any kind of text.

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Table of contents

Step 1: prewriting, step 2: planning and outlining, step 3: writing a first draft, step 4: redrafting and revising, step 5: editing and proofreading, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about the writing process.

Before you start writing, you need to decide exactly what you’ll write about and do the necessary research.

Coming up with a topic

If you have to come up with your own topic for an assignment, think of what you’ve covered in class— is there a particular area that intrigued, interested, or even confused you? Topics that left you with additional questions are perfect, as these are questions you can explore in your writing.

The scope depends on what type of text you’re writing—for example, an essay or a research paper will be less in-depth than a dissertation topic . Don’t pick anything too ambitious to cover within the word count, or too limited for you to find much to say.

Narrow down your idea to a specific argument or question. For example, an appropriate topic for an essay might be narrowed down like this:

Doing the research

Once you know your topic, it’s time to search for relevant sources and gather the information you need. This process varies according to your field of study and the scope of the assignment. It might involve:

• Searching for primary and secondary sources .
• Reading the relevant texts closely (e.g. for literary analysis ).
• Collecting data using relevant research methods (e.g. experiments , interviews or surveys )

From a writing perspective, the important thing is to take plenty of notes while you do the research. Keep track of the titles, authors, publication dates, and relevant quotations from your sources; the data you gathered; and your initial analysis or interpretation of the questions you’re addressing.

Especially in academic writing , it’s important to use a logical structure to convey information effectively. It’s far better to plan this out in advance than to try to work out your structure once you’ve already begun writing.

Creating an essay outline is a useful way to plan out your structure before you start writing. This should help you work out the main ideas you want to focus on and how you’ll organize them. The outline doesn’t have to be final—it’s okay if your structure changes throughout the writing process.

Use bullet points or numbering to make your structure clear at a glance. Even for a short text that won’t use headings, it’s useful to summarize what you’ll discuss in each paragraph.

An outline for a literary analysis essay might look something like this:

• Describe the theatricality of Austen’s works
• Outline the role theater plays in Mansfield Park
• Introduce the research question: How does Austen use theater to express the characters’ morality in Mansfield Park ?
• Discuss Austen’s depiction of the performance at the end of the first volume
• Discuss how Sir Bertram reacts to the acting scheme
• Introduce Austen’s use of stage direction–like details during dialogue
• Explore how these are deployed to show the characters’ self-absorption
• Discuss Austen’s description of Maria and Julia’s relationship as polite but affectionless
• Compare Mrs. Norris’s self-conceit as charitable despite her idleness
• Summarize the three themes: The acting scheme, stage directions, and the performance of morals
• Answer the research question
• Indicate areas for further study

Once you have a clear idea of your structure, it’s time to produce a full first draft.

This process can be quite non-linear. For example, it’s reasonable to begin writing with the main body of the text, saving the introduction for later once you have a clearer idea of the text you’re introducing.

To give structure to your writing, use your outline as a framework. Make sure that each paragraph has a clear central focus that relates to your overall argument.

Hover over the parts of the example, from a literary analysis essay on Mansfield Park , to see how a paragraph is constructed.

The character of Mrs. Norris provides another example of the performance of morals in Mansfield Park . Early in the novel, she is described in scathing terms as one who knows “how to dictate liberality to others: but her love of money was equal to her love of directing” (p. 7). This hypocrisy does not interfere with her self-conceit as “the most liberal-minded sister and aunt in the world” (p. 7). Mrs. Norris is strongly concerned with appearing charitable, but unwilling to make any personal sacrifices to accomplish this. Instead, she stage-manages the charitable actions of others, never acknowledging that her schemes do not put her own time or money on the line. In this way, Austen again shows us a character whose morally upright behavior is fundamentally a performance—for whom the goal of doing good is less important than the goal of seeming good.

When you move onto a different topic, start a new paragraph. Use appropriate transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas.

The goal at this stage is to get a draft completed, not to make everything perfect as you go along. Once you have a full draft in front of you, you’ll have a clearer idea of where improvement is needed.

Give yourself a first draft deadline that leaves you a reasonable length of time to revise, edit, and proofread before the final deadline. For a longer text like a dissertation, you and your supervisor might agree on deadlines for individual chapters.

Now it’s time to look critically at your first draft and find potential areas for improvement. Redrafting means substantially adding or removing content, while revising involves making changes to structure and reformulating arguments.

Evaluating the first draft

It can be difficult to look objectively at your own writing. Your perspective might be positively or negatively biased—especially if you try to assess your work shortly after finishing it.

It’s best to leave your work alone for at least a day or two after completing the first draft. Come back after a break to evaluate it with fresh eyes; you’ll spot things you wouldn’t have otherwise.

When evaluating your writing at this stage, you’re mainly looking for larger issues such as changes to your arguments or structure. Starting with bigger concerns saves you time—there’s no point perfecting the grammar of something you end up cutting out anyway.

Right now, you’re looking for:

• Arguments that are unclear or illogical.
• Areas where information would be better presented in a different order.
• Passages where additional information or explanation is needed.
• Passages that are irrelevant to your overall argument.

For example, in our paper on Mansfield Park , we might realize the argument would be stronger with more direct consideration of the protagonist Fanny Price, and decide to try to find space for this in paragraph IV.

For some assignments, you’ll receive feedback on your first draft from a supervisor or peer. Be sure to pay close attention to what they tell you, as their advice will usually give you a clearer sense of which aspects of your text need improvement.

Redrafting and revising

Once you’ve decided where changes are needed, make the big changes first, as these are likely to have knock-on effects on the rest. Depending on what your text needs, this step might involve:

• Making changes to your overall argument.
• Reordering the text.
• Cutting parts of the text.
• Adding new text.

You can go back and forth between writing, redrafting and revising several times until you have a final draft that you’re happy with.

Think about what changes you can realistically accomplish in the time you have. If you are running low on time, you don’t want to leave your text in a messy state halfway through redrafting, so make sure to prioritize the most important changes.

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Editing focuses on local concerns like clarity and sentence structure. Proofreading involves reading the text closely to remove typos and ensure stylistic consistency. You can check all your drafts and texts in minutes with an AI proofreader .

Editing for grammar and clarity

When editing, you want to ensure your text is clear, concise, and grammatically correct. You’re looking out for:

• Grammatical errors.
• Ambiguous phrasings.
• Redundancy and repetition .

In your initial draft, it’s common to end up with a lot of sentences that are poorly formulated. Look critically at where your meaning could be conveyed in a more effective way or in fewer words, and watch out for common sentence structure mistakes like run-on sentences and sentence fragments:

• Austen’s style is frequently humorous, her characters are often described as “witty.” Although this is less true of Mansfield Park .
• Austen’s style is frequently humorous. Her characters are often described as “witty,” although this is less true of Mansfield Park .

To make your sentences run smoothly, you can always use a paraphrasing tool to rewrite them in a clearer way.

Proofreading for small mistakes and typos

When proofreading, first look out for typos in your text:

• Spelling errors.
• Missing words.
• Confused word choices .
• Punctuation errors .
• Missing or excess spaces.

Use a grammar checker , but be sure to do another manual check after. Read through your text line by line, watching out for problem areas highlighted by the software but also for any other issues it might have missed.

For example, in the following phrase we notice several errors:

• Mary Crawfords character is a complicate one and her relationships with Fanny and Edmund undergoes several transformations through out the novel.
• Mary Crawford’s character is a complicated one, and her relationships with both Fanny and Edmund undergo several transformations throughout the novel.

Proofreading for stylistic consistency

There are several issues in academic writing where you can choose between multiple different standards. For example:

• Whether you use the serial comma .
• Whether you use American or British spellings and punctuation (you can use a punctuation checker for this).
• Where you use numerals vs. words for numbers.
• How you capitalize your titles and headings.

Unless you’re given specific guidance on these issues, it’s your choice which standards you follow. The important thing is to consistently follow one standard for each issue. For example, don’t use a mixture of American and British spellings in your paper.

Additionally, you will probably be provided with specific guidelines for issues related to format (how your text is presented on the page) and citations (how you acknowledge your sources). Always follow these instructions carefully.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

• Grammar Checker
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
• Plagiarism Checker
• Citation Generator

Revising, proofreading, and editing are different stages of the writing process .

• Revising is making structural and logical changes to your text—reformulating arguments and reordering information.
• Editing refers to making more local changes to things like sentence structure and phrasing to make sure your meaning is conveyed clearly and concisely.
• Proofreading involves looking at the text closely, line by line, to spot any typos and issues with consistency and correct them.

Whether you’re publishing a blog, submitting a research paper , or even just writing an important email, there are a few techniques you can use to make sure it’s error-free:

• Take a break : Set your work aside for at least a few hours so that you can look at it with fresh eyes.
• Proofread a printout : Staring at a screen for too long can cause fatigue – sit down with a pen and paper to check the final version.
• Use digital shortcuts : Take note of any recurring mistakes (for example, misspelling a particular word, switching between US and UK English , or inconsistently capitalizing a term), and use Find and Replace to fix it throughout the document.

If you want to be confident that an important text is error-free, it might be worth choosing a professional proofreading service instead.

If you’ve gone over the word limit set for your assignment, shorten your sentences and cut repetition and redundancy during the editing process. If you use a lot of long quotes , consider shortening them to just the essentials.

If you need to remove a lot of words, you may have to cut certain passages. Remember that everything in the text should be there to support your argument; look for any information that’s not essential to your point and remove it.

To make this process easier and faster, you can use a paraphrasing tool . With this tool, you can rewrite your text to make it simpler and shorter. If that’s not enough, you can copy-paste your paraphrased text into the summarizer . This tool will distill your text to its core message.

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The Writing Process

Whether writing a paper for school or a document for work, high-stakes writing requires careful thought and execution. The steps involved in this form of writing constitute a writing process. Even though everyone ultimately has his/her/their own process for getting ideas down on paper and turning those ideas into a finished product, there are identifiable steps involved in the process of writing that can be defined, developed, and discussed. These steps include:

• Getting Started (from deciphering a writing task assignment to getting your initial thoughts on a topic on paper)
• Drafting (from organizing your ideas, to strategies for refining drafts to dealing with writer’s block)
• Organization and Structure
• Gathering and Using Feedback (from responding to comments to using comments constructively)
• Revising, Editing, Proofreading

Common Types of Writing Assignments (Southwestern University) Your best resource for questions about assignments is your professor. However, here are a few links that discuss some common types of assignments. Please remember that these are just guides and that each assignment is different.

If I Were a Carpenter: The Tools of the Writer (Roy Peter Clark, Senior Scholar at The Poynter Institute and director of the National Writers’ Workshop) Includes 20 of the best writing tips that Clark has learned from reporters, editors, authors, teachers, and coaches.

Stages of the Writing Process (MIT Writing and Communication Center) 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.

Starting The Writing Process (Purdue OWL) The highly regarded OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue University offers a large collection of online guides on writing that are updated regularly and cover a myriad of topics. This is a link to their page on the writing process.

Strategies for Essay Writing (Harvard College Writing Center) The links below provide concise advice on some fundamental elements of academic writing.

• How to Read an Assignment
• How to Do a Close Reading
• Essay Structure
• Developing a Thesis
• Topic Sentences and Signposting
• Transitioning
• How to Write a Comparative Analysis
• Conclusions

Tips and Tools Handouts (UNC Chapel Hill, The Writing Center) A comprehensive collection of handouts that deal with various aspects of the writing process including: writing the paper; citation, style, and sentence level concerns; specific writing assignments or contexts; and writing for specific fields.

GETTING STARTED

Before you begin writing, there are a few steps you can take to help you prepare yourself for the task at hand. The first step in any writing task is to understand what you need to write . In a classroom setting, this means understanding the assignment. In a professional setting, this means studying the publication: its audience, writer’s guidelines, and editorial reviewers. And in a business setting, it means identifying and understanding the needs of your customers.

Once you have an idea of what you need to write and why, you can begin brainstorming and generating ideas on what you want to write. Below are resources on prewriting, also known as invention, in the writing process.

Brainstorming Strategies for Student Writing (Cardinal Stritch University) Posted on YouTube: Oct. 20 2013 | length: 10:42 This tutorial provides “5 Brainstorming Methods for Writing Better College Papers.”

Developing an Outline (Purdue OWL) This guide demonstrates how to develop an outline for a first draft.

Getting Started (Pace University, The Writing Center) (Podcast) Posted on iTunes U: May 6 2009 | length: 1:45 / Access: iTunes U “Not sure how to begin your paper? Stuck on a topic? Not sure where to begin? Listen to this short podcast about how to get yourself started quickly and easily!” “Getting Started” is item 19 on the list of resources.

How Do I Make Sure I Understand an Assignment? (University of Michigan) “While some writing assignments are straightforward, others may need careful deciphering to make sure you are following the guidelines. Looking carefully at the instructions provided for any writing assignment to be certain that you understand the guidelines not only prevents missteps but can also help you develop strategies for conquering the task ahead.”

Introduction to Prewriting (Purdue OWL) This guide introduces the writer to strategies and techniques for developing an idea for a writing assignment through a series of questions.

Prewriting Questions (Purdue OWL) “This section explains the prewriting (invention) stage of the composing process. It includes processes, strategies, and questions to help you begin to write..”

• More Prewriting Questions

Starting the Writing Process (Purdue OWL) This guide addresses how to begin thinking about a writing project.

The Perils of Writer’s Block: A Poem (Pace University, The Writing Center) (Podcast) Posted on iTunes U: April 10 2009 | length: :40 / Access: iTunes U “We all hate writer’s block and this fun poem will give you an opportunity to rant and rave with our very own consultants!” “The Perils of Writer’s Block” is item 20 on the list of resources.

Understanding an Assignment (MIT Writing and Communication Center) When you get a writing task, the first step is to make sure you understand what you are being asked to do. This guide explains how to understand a writing assignment.

Understanding Assignments (UNC Chapel Hill, The Writing Center) “The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects.”

Understanding Writing Assignments (Purdue OWL) “This resource describes some steps you can take to better understand the requirements of your writing assignments. This resource works for either in-class, teacher-led discussion or for personal use.”

Write a Great Essay Using The Topoi (Associate Professor of Writing Mark Marino, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences) Posted on YouTube: Oct. 27, 2008 | length: 10:22 This video demonstrates how to brainstorm a topic using the prewriting strategy called “Topoi.”

Writer’s Block (Purdue OWL) This guide discusses the causes and provides ideas and suggestions for dealing with writer’s block.

• More Writer’s Block Strategies

Writing Anxiety (UNC Chapel Hill, The Writing Center) “This handout discusses the situational nature of writer’s block and other writing anxiety and suggests things you can try to feel more confident and optimistic about yourself as a writer.”

CLAIM (THESIS)

Prior to writing and during the drafting stage, you should be thinking about the central claim – also known as the thesis or argument – of your paper. Developing a single statement that clearly articulates the main argument of your paper is a key component to writing a strong paper. As you delve further into research and exploration, your argument may change slightly or drastically; thus, you should continually reread and revise your central claim so that it provides a true representation of your paper. Many people like to think of a central claim as a roadmap of the paper, as it offers your readers a guide for where the paper is headed. Usually a central claim is written at the end of an introduction, though it may be present anywhere in your paper.

Argument (UNC Chapel Hill, The Writing Center) “This handout will define what an argument is and explain why you need one in most of your academic essays.”

Developing a Thesis (Harvard College Writing Center) “A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should “telegraph” how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.” This resource provides steps for writing a thesis statement along with caveats and examples.

Developing a Thesis Statement (Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison, The Writing Center) Offers a step-by-step approach to developing a thesis statement, from defining a topic to drafting a statement and finalizing it.

How to Write a Thesis Statement (Indiana University Writing Tutorial Services) Covers what a thesis statement is, why your paper needs one, and how to write/assess a thesis statement based on the following:

• How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned
• How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned
• How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

The Thesis Statement: A Roadmap for Your Essay (Modesto Junior College) A PowerPoint presentation (approximately 20 slides) that uses many examples to help you understand what a thesis statement looks like and where you might add it to your paper.

Now you’re ready to put your ideas together and produce a first draft. This early and rough draft will lead you to your second, third, and fourth drafts as you continue to conduct more research and refine your ideas.

Pre-writing Activities and Drafting Your Essay (Purdue OWL) “This handout covers major topics relating to writing about fiction. This covers prewriting, close reading, thesis development, drafting and common pitfalls to avoid.”

Composing Processes: Drafting, Designing and Revising (Writing@CSU) “These guides provide advice on composing processes such as developing a thesis statement, creating a first draft, designing documents, revising, editing, proofreading, and carrying out peer review. Use these guides to help yourself write an effective document.”

The Structure of an Essay Draft (Univ. of Arizona) Tips for drafting your introduction, body, and conclusion. (Handout based on Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference )

INTRODUCTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Sometimes writers have difficulties beginning and ending their papers. However, many effective introductions share similar elements – a hook, context, your argument, etc. – depending on the type of paper being composed. Likewise, many introductions and conclusions attempt to convey the “so what” factor, or why your reader should care about the subject. If you get stuck when writing the introduction, you might try moving onto your body paragraphs and then writing the introduction after the rest of your draft is complete. The websites listed below also provide a number of useful strategies and tips.

Conclusions (UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center) “This handout will explain the functions of conclusions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you evaluate conclusions you’ve drafted, and suggest approaches to avoid.”

Conclusion Strategies (MIT Writing and Communication Center; Click here for a full list of their online resources for writers) Examples of strategies to use in writing an introduction for a college essay.

Ending the Essay: Conclusions (Harvard College Writing Center) Offers strategies on how to provide readers with closure at the end of your essay or leave them thinking critically about the larger implications. It also provides some suggestions on ways not to end an essay.

Introductions (UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center) “This handout will explain the functions of introductions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you check your drafted introductions and provide you with examples of introductions to be avoided.”

Introductions, Body Paragraphs, and Conclusions for an Argument Paper (Purdue OWL) This guide addresses how to develop the key parts of a paper: the introduction, the body and the conclusion. There is a similar guide for writing exploratory papers.

Introductions, Body Paragraphs, and Conclusions for Exploratory Papers (Purdue OWL) This guide addresses how to develop the key parts of a paper: the introduction, the body and the conclusion. There is a similar guide for writing argument papers.

Introduction Strategies (MIT Online Writing and Communication Center; Click here for a full list of their Writing and Communication Center Resources) Examples of strategies to use in writing an introduction for a college essay.

Writing Introductions (Franklin and Marshall College Writing Center) A handout that breaks the introductory paragraph into manageable units – the opening sentence, middle sentences, and thesis statement. It also includes a sample effective introductory paragraph and ineffective introductory paragraph.

Writing Strong Conclusions (Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania, Kathleen Jones White Writing Center) Presents “five basic methods for concluding your paper in a way that will leave your reader intrigued and impressed”: anecdote, basic summary, startling summary, famous ideas, and hinting at related issues.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE

The organization of your paper should always be intentional. Whether you choose to structure your ideas chronologically, thematically, or in some other way, you should be thinking about the most effective way to present your argument to readers. You should also be able to clearly see how ideas are interwoven. Within each individual paragraph and between multiple paragraphs, you should seamlessly transition between concepts so your readers never lose track of your thought process.

Essay Structure (Harvard College Writing Center) This source reviews the logic behind essay writing explaining how “successfully structuring an essay means attending to a reader’s logic.”

On Paragraphs  (Purdue OWL) “Learning to write good paragraphs will help you as a writer stay on track during your drafting and revision stages.”

Organizing an Exploratory Essay (Purdue OWL) “This resource will help you with exploratory/inquiry essay assignments.”

Organizing Your Analysis (Purdue OWL) “This resource covers how to write a rhetorical analysis essay of primarily visual texts with a focus on demonstrating the author’s understanding of the rhetorical situation and design principles.”

Organizing Your Argument (Purdue OWL) Explains the Toulmin Method of logic/argumentation and offers an example.

Transitions (The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) “This handout will introduce you to some useful transitional expressions and help you employ them effectively.”

Strategies for Organizing as You Write (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas; Click here for a full list of their handouts) (PDF) Describes different ways to organize your writing including creating headings, color coding, and outlining.

GATHERING AND USING FEEDBACK

Because writing is meant to be read, one of the best ways to improve your writing is to have others read your work. In academic circles, this is called peer review. In business, it is just called review. Your instructor might also give you feedback with the opportunity to revise. Gathering this feedback and using it constructively is a vital step in producing a quality piece of writing.

Challenges of Good Writing Part 3: Asking for Feedback (Arizona State University at iTunes U–ASU Challenges of Good Writing – Asking for Feedback) Posted on iTunes U: March 11, 2009 | length: 13:45 Dr. Jeanne Simpson, Director of the ASU Writing Centers, interviews professors from a variety of disciplines regarding exemplary writing in their fields These professors share their thoughts, challenges, and frustrations about the writing process. “Challenges of Good Writing” is item 8 on the list of resources in iTunes.

Getting Feedback (UNC Chapel Hill, Writing Center) “Sometimes you’d like feedback from someone else about your writing, but you may not be sure how to get it. This handout describes when, where, how and from whom you might receive effective responses as you develop as a writer.”

Peer Reviewing (University of Maryland Global Campus) From “The Writing Process” in the Online Guide to Writing and Research This page presents a series of checklists to direct the person reviewing your writing to particular areas and provide more focused feedback.

REVISING, EDITING AND PROOFREADING

When you submit a paper to a teacher for a grade, a journal for possible publication, or a customer or colleague in a business setting, you want your writing to be the best it can be in presenting your ideas. If your paper is riddled with pesky typos, misspelled words, or grammatical and punctuation errors, the reader will only focus on the errors. You need to edit and proofread your work closely so your reader focuses on the quality of your ideas.

Editing and Proofreading (UNC Chapel Hill, Writing Center) A handout on the differences between editing and proofreading with tips and strategies for revising and editing your own writing.

Proofreading Your Paper (Purdue OWL) Strategies for reviewing your finished writing to catch grammar and punctuation errors.

Questions to Ask Yourself as you Revise Your Essay (Writing@CSU) Questions to guide the essay revision process.

Reverse Outlining: An Exercise for Taking Notes and Revising Your Work (Purdue OWL) This guide provides a specific strategy of revising your paper by making an outline of a paper after it has been written to see what works and what is missing.

Revisions (Pace University, Writing Center) (Podcast) Posted on iTunes U: April 10 2009 | length: 2:04 “This short podcast will show you effective ways to look at your finished paper and improve it on your own. Revision is item 17 on the list of resources in iTunes.”

Strategies for Revision (Duke University; posted by USF Writing Commons) Posted on YouTube: June 19 2014 length: 8:22 This video clip provides specific strategies and helpful guidance on the best ways to revise an essay.

MULTIMODAL WRITING

Multimodal writing is the practice of using different modalities (audio, visual, spatial, and more) to help create meaning. Multimodality is common in academic and workplace writing. Use the resource below to help guide you on how to incorporate multimodality in your writing.

Digital Writing 101 (Amy Goodloe) A blog created by former University of Colorado-Boulder professor comprised of a variety of how-to guides for digital projects, including video, digital images, and digital storytelling, and more. It also contains sample student projects that use various media.

WRITING TIMED ESSAYS

You may not always have time to go through the steps writing a well-developed essay usually requires. This section provides background information and strategies you can use for completing the GRE Analytical Writing section or other timed essay tests.

For the GRE:

Overview of the GRE Analytical Writing Measure (ETS) An introduction to the Analytical Writing portion of the GRE that includes tips on how to prepare, information on scoring, and sample tasks. The GRE Analytical Writing prompts will ask you to analyze an issue and analyze an argument . In order to prepare for the test, you may want to review the topic pool for issue tasks and topic pool for argument tasks that have been published by the GRE.

For any timed essay:

Timed Essay/Essay Exam (Duke University, Writing Studio) “At some point during your college career, you will likely encounter a timed essay. Known collectively as timed essays, essay exams, or in-class essays, these essays require you to demonstrate disciplinary knowledge by producing a writing sample within a limited time period. Timed essays are popular because they allow teachers to grade students holistically in a very brief amount of time. This handout offers a few ways to prepare for timed essays and provides advice for how to answer a timed essay question effectively.”

Writing Essays for Exams (Purdue OWL) “While most OWL resources recommend a longer writing process (start early, revise often, conduct thorough research, etc.), sometimes you just have to write quickly in test situations. However, these exam essays can be no less important pieces of writing than research papers because they can influence final grades for courses, and/or they can mean the difference between getting into an academic program (GED, SAT, GRE). To that end, this resource will help you prepare and write essays for exams.”

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The Writing Process

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Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, prewriting – laying the foundation for successful writing.

Prewriting refers to all of the work you do before beginning to write. This article explores the dispositions and prewriting strategies writers employ to write more efficiently and with greater clarity and impact. Case studies, interviews, and observations of writers at work have found that prewriting involves balancing both intuitive, creative activities with critical, analytical strategies. For instance, during prewriting you are wise to listen your 'felt sense' - your embodied awareness of what you want to say. And, during prewriting, you are also wise to engage in more straightforward, cognitive processes such as engaging in outlining, drafting a document planner, or engaging in rhetorical analysis.

What is Prewriting?

Prewriting refers to

• a ll of the work a writer engages in BEFORE BEGINNING TO WRITE
• the first stage of the writing process
• a liminal space — the space between thinking about working on a project and actually beginning to write.

Writers have many ways of engaging in prewriting , based on their individual preferences and the discourse conventions of their audience . Interviews and case studies of writers @ work have found that during prewriting writers engage in a variety of dispositions and strategies :

Dispositions

• During prewriting, writers embrace intellectual openness . They interview stakeholders, consider counterarguments , and review the peer-reviewed literature on the topic
• During prewriting, writers adopt a growth mindset . They privilege the believing game over the doubting game .
• Some writers believe the subconscious is a source of ideas, creativity and inspiration. Some believe dreams are a window into the subconscious.
• “When writers are given a topic , the topic itself evokes a felt sense in them. This topic calls forth images, words, ideas, and vague fuzzy feelings that are anchored in the writer’s body. What is elicited, then, is not solely the product of a mind but of a mind alive in a living, sensing body…..When writers pause, when they go back and repeat key words, what they seem to be doing is waiting, paying attention to what is still vague and unclear. They are looking to their felt experience, and waiting for an image, a word, a phrase to emerge that captures the sense they embody….Usually, when they make the decision to write, it is after they have a dawning awareness that something has clicked, that they have enough of a sense that if they begin with a few words heading in a certain direction, words will continue to come which will allow them to flesh out the sense they have” (Perl 1980, p. 365).
• Writers like to talk over an exigency , a problem , a call to write with trusted friends, peers, and mentors. In college, students like to brainstorm with one another to better understand a writing assignment or the needs of the audience, such as a manager or a client, before deciding to take it on as a writing project
• In interviews and memoirs, writers and artists report insatiable inquiry. They engage in informal research . They engage in strategic research in order to learn what is known about the topic creative play.
• Writers may engage in meditation to help slow down. They may need to turn off their phones and computers to reach the state of calmness and focus necessary to begin thinking about a writing project.
• Writers like to procrastinate. Sometimes writers need to set a call to write aside. They need to let an idea simmer on the back burner. They may sleep on it.
• Some creative people track and interpret their dreams. They say this helps them interpret their dreams for insights, reoccurring narratives, and solutions to problems they face during waking hours.
• Writers may engage in extensive strategic searching in order to identify the status “ conversation ” on a particular topic . Writers may freewrite to see where their thoughts lead them.

The terms planning , prewriting , and invention are sometimes used interchangeably, yet they each carry distinct meanings:

• Prewriting is a subset of planning, focusing more on the initial stages of idea generation, brainstorming, and exploration of thoughts before formal writing begins
• Planning typically refers to the overall process of organizing ideas and structuring a writing piece, encompassing the selection of topics, determination of purpose, and arrangement of content 
• Invention is often associated specifically with the creative aspect of prewriting , where writers devise innovative ideas, concepts, and arguments. 

Related Concepts: Document Planner ; Intellectual Openness ; Mindset ; Resilience ; Rhetorical Analysis ; Self-Regulation & Metacognition

Why Does Prewriting Matter?

• Prewriting helps clarify and refine the central theme or argument of the piece.
• During prewriting, writers have the freedom to explore different angles and perspectives . This creative exploration can lead to more original and engaging content.
• By outlining the main ideas during prewriting, writers can determine what additional research or information is needed, making their research efforts more focused and efficient.
• Engaging in prewriting activities like brainstorming or free writing can help overcome writer’s block by getting ideas flowing and reducing the pressure of creating perfect content from the start .
• Prewriting helps in structuring thoughts and ideas, leading to a more organized and coherent draft. This organization is crucial for the logical flow of the final piece.
• During prewriting, writers can consider their audience’s needs and expectations , tailoring the content to be more relevant and engaging for the intended readers.
• Prewriting sets a solid foundation for the first draft, ensuring that the writing process starts with a clear direction and purpose.
• With a clear outline or plan from the prewriting stage, the actual writing process becomes more efficient, as the writer has a clear roadmap to follow.
• Prewriting gives writers a chance to reflect on their topic, assess their knowledge and opinions , and evaluate the potential impact of their writing.

Is Prewriting Always Necessary?

No. Writers differ in how frequently or deeply they engage in prewriting. Some people prefer to jump immediately into composing . They don’t pause to reflect on the rhetorical situation . They don’t want to conduct a literature review. Instead, they want to immediately dive in and spark the creative process by freewriting , visual brainstorming , and other creative heuristics .

In contrast, other writers prefer to engage significant prewriting: they question

• What’s known about a topic ? what’s novel? what knowledge claims are currently being disputed?
• What does peer-reviewed literature say about the topic?
• Do I need to engage in empirical research? What methods are expected by the discourse community?
• What informal, background research needs to be done in order to prepare to write?
• What’s the best way to organize the document? What common organizational patterns should I use to help the readers interpret the message?

What Is the Difference Between Planning, Prewriting & Invention?

The terms planning , prewriting , and invention may be used used interchangeably because they are such intertwined processes, yet they each carry distinct meanings:

• Planning typically refers to the overall process of organizing ideas and structuring a writing piece , encompassing the selection of topics , determination of purpose , and arrangement of content.  It typically encompasses tools such as Team Charters and usage of project management software . While prewriting and invention may involve more creative and exploratory activities, planning is focused on setting a clear direction and framework for the writing.
• Prewriting is a subset of planning , focusing more on the initial stages of idea generation, brainstorming, and exploration of thoughts before formal writing begins. Prewriting is more expansive and free-form than planning, allowing for a broader exploration of thoughts and concepts. In comparison to invention, prewriting is less about generating new ideas and more about exploring and organizing existing ideas in preparation for writing.
• Invention in writing refers to the process of generating new ideas, concepts, or perspectives. Invention is distinct from planning and prewriting in that it is focused primarily on creating something new, rather than organizing or setting objectives for existing ideas.

Brevity - Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence - How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow - How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity - Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style - The DNA of Powerful Writing

Recommended

Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community

Structured Revision – How to Revise Your Work

Professional Writing – How to Write for the Professional World

Credibility & Authority – How to Be Credible & Authoritative in Speech & Writing

Citation Guide – Learn How to Cite Sources in Academic and Professional Writing

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A Guide to English: The Writing Process

• An Introduction to Rhetoric
• Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing
• The Writing Process
• Formatting and Citations
• The Reference Collection
• Searching for Books
• Searching for Articles
• Bibliographic Trace
• Citation Management
• Scholarly Associations
• The English Language
• Literary Form
• Peoples and Identities
• Periods and Movements in American Literature
• Periods and Movements in Commonwealth Literatures
• Thematic Genres and "Genre Fiction"
• Award Winners (indexed)
• Criticism & Theory
• Creative Writing
• Multimodal Composition
• Text Analysis / Distant Reading
• Digital Stewardship
• Data Visualization
• GIS and Geospatial Data
• Statistical Analysis
• Programming
• Digital Scholarly Editing

In this Section

• Academic Writing: How It's Different
• Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing

On this Page

General guides to the writing process, editing/proofreading.

Below are some guidebooks aimed at students which give in depth advice on how to go through the multiple steps of the writing process . When we give ourselves time and treat writing as a multi-step process, rather than a task we have to get right in one go (the weekend before the paper is due, right?), we can allow our thoughts and research to more fully develop in the prewriting stage, we feel less inhibited in our initial drafting of the paper, and we recognize that revision has the power to reshape and refine our writing into a rhetorically superior text. Once the content is ready we engage in proofreading to ensure the text is free of errors and ready to appear before the world at the final stage of publishing .

Check out the boxes below for more discussion of each stage the writing process.

Pre-writing

Consider the assignment requirements.

Before doing anything else, look carefully at the instructions or requirements for the assignment you have to complete. Remember: You can produce an amazing piece of writing and still lose points if you do not follow the instructions or are missing required elements.

A rubric is a table that tells you what point values your professor is likely to assign if you perform at a particular level for each criterion . A criterion is an aspect of your paper your professor is indicating you are going to be graded on, with a description typically offered for what a perfect or high score would look like in terms of what your paper achieves.

If you bear in mind the assignment requirements and/or the rubric criteria through each stage of the writing process, you will make it more likely that your final paper will meet all the requirements and achieve a higher score.

Consider the Rhetorical Situation

Fulfilling your professor's expectations is not always so easy as checking a box, however. In college writing we are expected to engage with the genre norms of the scholarly discipline that we are taking a class in. The norms of writing an English paper will differ from the norms of writing a Political Science paper, and will be still more different from the norms of writing a paper for a Biology class.

That is why in order to position ourselves for the most success for the writing task in front of us, it is important to consider the rhetorical situation . The rhetorical situation consists of three main factors:

• The message you want to deliver
• The audience you want to deliver the message to
• Your credibility as a person delivering that message

There is also a fourth factor which shapes the other three, that being the overall context of the situation. At the prewriting stage, you won't necessarily have each of these factors sorted out: that's the whole point of prewriting. Pre-writing is a process of discovery, but while you are exploring it helps to have a general sense of what it is you are looking for (or else you might miss it!)

While pre-writing, think about:

• What is the topic I want to deliver a message about? Is my topic too broad or too narrow (which is in great part determined by ...)
• Who is my audience? Have they heard this message before? Will it catch their attention? Will my topic strike them as too broad, or will it seem too obscure/narrow? Does my message engage with/address their prior knowledge and understanding about the topic? Does it approach the topic from a "fresh" perspective that the audience could get excited about?
• How can I establish my own credibility to write about this topic? What can I do to demonstrate that I should be listened to when writing about this topic? (For example, how does the narrowness or broadness of my topic affect my credibility? How can I engage with and respond to other sources of information who  do already have credibility with my audience?)

Developing a Search Strategy: Brainstorming, Concept Mapping, and KWHL

In the prewriting stage, we are trying to unearth both our own preexisting knowledge as well as knowledge we develop through our research. There are various techniques for getting our own knowledge out of our heads and into a form where we can readily go back to it, ranging from pure brainstorming by free-writing thoughts related to the topic, creating a concept or mind map which connects related concepts and allows you to consider what the relations are between the concepts, or using a graphic organizer like a KWHL chart, where you write what you Know (K), Want to Know (W), How You Will Find Out (H), and afterwards, What You Learned (L).

• Bubble.us - (semi)free mindmapping tool
• A Blank KWHL Chart - useful as a graphic organizer and for setting research objectives

Bear in mind however, that prewriting is a recursive process, meaning it is repetitive: unearthing your existing knowledge about concepts related to a topic will lead you to other sources in order to learn more about those concepts, which can in turn lead you to add more concepts to explore and understand in order to gain a fuller understanding of the topic. When prewriting, paradoxically, we expand before we contract: that is, first we want to expand our understanding, so that we can have sufficient context for the next stage of prewriting, where we narrow our topic in preparation for more focused research and writing.

Narrowing Your Topic

Because academic writing is a conversation, we try to both respond to what other scholars have said and contribute our own original ideas in return. One great strategy to ensure you are well-positioned to both respond and be original is to  narrow your topic . When a topic is too large or too general, it becomes much harder to deal with all aspects of it in any reasonable depth. (Think about it: if a topic is broad enough that other people have written 200+ page books about it, it is probably too broad for your paper.)

One way to narrow a topic is to add qualifiers. Instead of covering all of [my topic], how about [my topic] + [a particular time period] OR [a particular situation] OR [a particular group of people]?

Each qualifier narrows the topic even further, and each time you narrow the topic, in all likelihood you also narrow the number of other scholars who have commented on specifically that topic + your chosen qualifiers at the length and depth that you can bring to it. (Fewer preexisting points of view means there is more space for *your point of view.*)

Gathering Sources

Consult the Academic Research tab of this guide to learn about using databases to search for articles, using the Gustavus Library catalog to search for books, and about how to use bibliographic trace techniques to understand the web of scholarly discussion and the keystone texts related to your topic.

As you gather sources and consult them, use critical reading techniques to preserve your thoughts and responses as these will help you come up with the thesis statement you will attempt to prove (and supporting arguments with which to prove it) when you next go to outline your paper.

Creating an Outline

Below you will find a sample outline for a paper taken from the class NDL 112 : Themes in Science Fiction Literature , showing one possible way to organize arguments within a paper. The instructions required students to use at least two primary texts (the short stories and novels that the class read) to prove an argument about how the treatment of a theme in science fiction literature differed across time periods, and why that matters. The outline strategically assigns specific paragraphs for each required element, making it more likely that the first draft at least addresses all required elements on the rubric.

The organization you choose for a given essay might be informed by a variety of factors, including chronology, the need to address a preliminary idea before applying it to a subsidiary idea, or aiming for an elliptical effect by first addressing and then returning to an idea once the elucidation of other ideas can shed a different light.

Regardless of what organization you choose, it is vital to have a clear thesis statement that asserts an original idea that you wish to prove. Without a clear, assertive, and original thesis, the remainder of the paper is undermined because readers cannot understand what it is you are marshaling all this additional information/verbiage to prove. Get the thesis right, however, and you have the makings of a strong essay.

Preview the supporting arguments you will make in your body paragraphs right after your thesis.

A good technique for writing a body paragraph is to begin each paragraph with an assertion (or topic sentence ) that in some way supports your thesis (which you will have previewed in the introduction), then use the remainder of the paragraph to explain and support that assertion, or engage in conversation with others who offer information that relates to or helps you back that assertion up. It is often an effective technique to close a supporting paragraph with a sentence that reconnects to or recontextualizes the supporting argument (which you have just proven) within the main thesis of the paper; alternately, the concluding sentence of a supporting paragraph could be used to transition to the next paragraph, which builds off the supporting arguments that you have just proved.

Introduction: Probably best to lead with the trope and theme you will be addressing. Maybe start with some colorful historical background about this idea: why is it interesting, what is its significance, what could we learn if we were to trace it over time? By the end of your introduction, you should have some kind of clear THESIS STATEMENT about how your theme has changed and what that says about the history and culture of SF in the times you are comparing.

1st body paragraph: Perhaps theorizing the theme? Defining the theme and previewing how the trope changes and influences it. (A good place to bring in SECONDARY SOURCES and engage in conversation with them.)

2nd body paragraph - SUMMARY of FIRST PRIMARY TEXT - maybe touch on its historical and social context, relationships with movements in the history of SF (this could be its own paragraph and a good place to bring in SECONDARY SOURCES)

3rd body paragraph - ANALYSIS of FIRST PRIMARY TEXT and the THEME you are tracing

4th body paragraph - SUMMARY of SECOND PRIMARY TEXT - maybe touch on its historical and social context, relationships with movements in the history of SF (this could be its own paragraph and a good place to bring in SECONDARY SOURCES)

5th body paragraph -  ANALYSIS of SECOND PRIMARY TEXT and the THEME you are tracing

6th body paragraph -  COMPARISON of FIRST PRIMARY TEXT to SECOND PRIMARY TEXT in terms of how they use the TROPE(S).

7th body paragraph - COMPARISON of FIRST PRIMARY TEXT to SECOND PRIMARY TEXT in terms of how their usage of the TROPE(S) convey similar or different themes.

8th body paragraph - Discussion of how the differences in these themes reflect social or cultural changes and/or different historical movements in the history of SF. (Another great place to bring in SECONDARY TEXTS.)

Conclusion   - Tying everything together, explaining what the significance is, especially cool if you can bring it back to how you started.

During the Drafting stage, you use your outline and the ideas you developed during Prewriting and focus on getting the ideas on paper. A draft is not meant to be perfect, nor should you spend much energy at this stage on your grammar or style. Instead think of your first draft as though you are producing clay (or play-doh, if you prefer) which you will substantially reshape during the Revision stage, and then make perfectly presentable (in terms of grammar and style) only when you reach the Proofreading stage. In drafting, by contrast, we are doing something more elemental: we are fulsomely developing our ideas into a text, because only once we have that draft of text in front of us can we do more precise actions to it.

The Revision stage is the stage where our writing goes from the first words and sentences that came out of our heads when working from our outline to the best words and sentences that we can come up with to express what we were trying to say. Experienced writers understand that revision is the stage where the author has the most agency to take an okay-sounding text and turn it into a rhetorical tour de force .

Authors accomplish this by analyzing the text they produced at multiple levels, typically starting from the largest (the paragraph-level) and moving to smaller levels (the sentences, the phrase, individual words) as they go, asking themselves questions like, "Is this the best way to structure this (paragraph, sentence, phrase)? Is there a way that would be more persuasive to my audience?" By proceeding from largest to smallest, they ensure that at all levels of its structure, the text is as good as it can be.

Here are two books that provide additional guidance about the revision process:

❝ "The history of learning is a history of revision — of mastering knowledge in order to improve it." –Matthew Parfitt, Writing in Response

During the Proofreading stage, we let go of our concerns over content and focus strictly on ensuring our grammar and word usage is correct. This is the most narrow and nitpicky stage of the writing process, which is why it makes sense to leave it until after we have dealt with larger questions of form and content during the previous stages of our writing.

Useful resources for Proofreading include the relevant style guide for your course (e.g. the MLA Handbook, the APA Handbook, etc.) and their citation guidelines to ensure you are properly formatting your text and citations. (See the Formatting and Citations page of this section.)

In order to ensure your individual words are accurately expressing what you mean to say, it is helpful to consult usage guides like the ones found in the Modern Grammar & Usage box on the English Language section of this guide.

Here are couple more books with useful information about the proofreading process:

You may not realize it yet, but there are numerous venues and formats available for publishing your writing. Publishing allows other people to read your work and enables you to get recognized. There are different processes for getting published in a popular or a scholarly venue, and there are also more modalities for publishing your work than just as a research paper.

For publishing in a popular venue, consult the Getting Published box on the Creative Writing page of this guide.

For a list of just some of the literary journals you could submit to, consult the Literary Reviews available in print and online box on the Searching for Articles page, go to the website of a journal that seems appropriate for your topic and study their Submission Requirements .

Here are some books that present more information about publishing in a scholarly journal, as well as other possible publishing formats:

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Prewriting Strategies

Five useful strategies.

Pre-writing strategies use writing to generate and clarify ideas. While many writers have traditionally created outlines before beginning writing, there are several other effective prewriting activities. We often call these prewriting strategies “brainstorming techniques.” Five useful strategies are listing, clustering, freewriting, looping, and asking the six journalists' questions. These strategies help you with both your invention and organization of ideas, and they can aid you in developing topics for your writing.

Listing is a process of producing a lot of information within a short time by generating some broad ideas and then building on those associations for more detail with a bullet point list. Listing is particularly useful if your starting topic is very broad, and you need to narrow it down.

• Jot down all the possible terms that emerge from the general topic you are working on. This procedure works especially well if you work in a team. All team members can generate ideas, with one member acting as scribe. Do not worry about editing or throwing out what might not be a good idea. Simply write down as many possibilities as you can.
• Group the items that you have listed according to arrangements that make sense to you. Are things thematically related?
• Give each group a label. Now you have a narrower topic with possible points of development.
• Write a sentence about the label you have given the group of ideas. Now you have a topic sentence or possibly a  thesis statement .

Clustering, also called mind mapping or idea mapping, is a strategy that allows you to explore the relationships between ideas.

• Put the subject in the center of a page. Circle or underline it.
• As you think of other ideas, write them on the page surrounding the central idea. Link the new ideas to the central circle with lines.
• As you think of ideas that relate to the new ideas, add to those in the same way.

The result will look like a web on your page. Locate clusters of interest to you, and use the terms you attached to the key ideas as departure points for your paper.

Clustering is especially useful in determining the relationship between ideas. You will be able to distinguish how the ideas fit together, especially where there is an abundance of ideas. Clustering your ideas lets you see them visually in a different way, so that you can more readily understand possible directions your paper may take.

Freewriting

Freewriting is a process of generating a lot of information by writing non-stop in full sentences for a predetermined amount of time. It allows you to focus on a specific topic but forces you to write so quickly that you are unable to edit any of your ideas.

• Freewrite on the assignment or general topic for five to ten minutes non-stop. Force yourself to continue writing even if nothing specific comes to mind (so you could end up writing “I don’t know what to write about” over and over until an idea pops into your head. This is okay; the important thing is that you do not stop writing). This freewriting will include many ideas; at this point, generating ideas is what is important, not the grammar or the spelling.
• After you have finished freewriting, look back over what you have written and highlight the most prominent and interesting ideas; then you can begin all over again, with a tighter focus (see looping). You will narrow your topic and, in the process, you will generate several relevant points about the topic.

Looping is a freewriting technique that allows you to focus your ideas continually while trying to discover a writing topic. After you freewrite for the first time, identify a key thought or idea in your writing, and begin to freewrite again, with that idea as your starting point. You will loop one 5-10 minute freewriting after another, so you have a sequence of freewritings, each more specific than the last. The same rules that apply to freewriting apply to looping: write quickly, do not edit, and do not stop.

Loop your freewriting as many times as necessary, circling another interesting topic, idea, phrase, or sentence each time. When you have finished four or five rounds of looping, you will begin to have specific information that indicates what you are thinking about a particular topic. You may even have the basis for a tentative thesis or an improved idea for an approach to your assignment when you have finished.

The Journalists' Questions

Journalists traditionally ask six questions when they are writing assignments that are broken down into five W's and one H:  Who? ,  What? ,  Where? ,  When? ,  Why? , and  How?  You can use these questions to explore the topic you are writing about for an assignment. A key to using the journalists' questions is to make them flexible enough to account for the specific details of your topic. For instance, if your topic is the rise and fall of the Puget Sound tides and its effect on salmon spawning, you may have very little to say about  Who  if your focus does not account for human involvement. On the other hand, some topics may be heavy on the  Who , especially if human involvement is a crucial part of the topic.

The journalists' questions are a powerful way to develop a great deal of information about a topic very quickly. Learning to ask the appropriate questions about a topic takes practice, however. At times during writing an assignment, you may wish to go back and ask the journalists' questions again to clarify important points that may be getting lost in your planning and drafting.

Possible generic questions you can ask using the six journalists' questions follow:

• Who? Who are the participants? Who is affected? Who are the primary actors? Who are the secondary actors?
• What? What is the topic? What is the significance of the topic? What is the basic problem? What are the issues related to that problem?
• Where? Where does the activity take place? Where does the problem or issue have its source? At what place is the cause or effect of the problem most visible?
• When? When is the issue most apparent? (in the past? present? future?) When did the issue or problem develop? What historical forces helped shape the problem or issue and at what point in time will the problem or issue culminate in a crisis? When is action needed to address the issue or problem?
• Why? Why did the issue or problem arise? Why is it (your topic) an issue or problem at all? Why did the issue or problem develop in the way that it did?
• How? How is the issue or problem significant? How can it be addressed? How does it affect the participants? How can the issue or problem be resolved?

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University of Lynchburg

The Writing Process

Discovery/investigation.

The first step in writing a successful paper in college requires an active engagement with your sources. Simply reading a primary source for content is no longer sufficient. The question should no longer be “What happened?” but rather “Why did that happen? What does that say about the character(s)/plot?” Make notes of your thoughts and ideas as you read.

Once the writer has finished an active reading of the primary source, it may be necessary to obtain secondary sources to back up the thesis. If your research yields books, remember that it is not necessary to read the entire book. You can either look for a chapter title that you believe will have information pertinent to your paper, or look at the index for terms that you will be discussing.

Peer-reviewed journals available online will be your most commonly used secondary resource. Use the online searches through the Knight-Capron Library, but remember that other search engines, such as Google Scholar, can yield results.

Prewriting is the step in which tools such as free writing, brainstorming, outlining, or clustering are used. In prewriting, no idea is too off topic or too strange. It is these sometimes dissociative ideas that can lead you to a paper topic that you never would have considered.

Though the common perception is that there is nothing that hasn’t been written about before, if you allow yourself to think outside the box, you can find a way of looking at an old topic through new eyes.

It is also during prewriting that the writer needs to make a decision about audience. Asking questions like: “Who is going to read my paper?”, “What is the purpose of this paper?”, and “Why are they going to read my paper?” will help you set your audience.

The simple answer to these questions is “My professor” and “Because they assigned it.” They are not the true answers. It could be that your paper needs to be geared towards elementary level students or participants in a seminar or peers at a conference. The language and tone for either of those audiences would be very different.

Drafting is the beginning of “writing” your paper. It is important to remember that in drafting you should already have a thesis idea to guide your writing. Without a thesis, your writing will be prone to drift, making it harder to frame after the fact.

In drafting, the writer should use materials created in the prewriting stage and any notes taken in discovery and investigation to frame and build body paragraphs.

Many writers will tackle their body paragraphs first instead of beginning with an introduction (especially if you are not sure of the exact direction of your paper). Beginning with body paragraphs will allow you to work through your ideas without feeling restricted by a specific thesis, but be prepared to delete paragraphs that don’t fit.

Afterwards, create an opening paragraph (with an appropriate revised thesis) that reflects the body of your essay.

There are two different scopes of revision: global and local.

Global Revision

Global revision involves focusing on higher order concerns. We frequently think of higher order concerns as involving audience, purpose, thesis claims, development (and support), and organization.

When looking your paper over with global revision in mind, ask yourself the following questions:

• What does my audience already know about this topic, and what do they need to know? Have I included information from sources that my audience values?
• Is the purpose of my paper clear? Does my thesis claim reflect the purpose, and does it fully capture my paper’s content?
• Have I offered enough supporting evidence in my supporting paragraphs? Have I effectively quoted, paraphrased, and/or summarized my sources? Have I provided appropriate in-text citations and entries in my works cited or reference page?
• Have I effectually discussed my evidence? Have I put my sources into context for the reader (perhaps by using signal phrases), and I have discussed the evidence I have used so that the reader understands its relevance/importance? Have I quoted sources but have failed to discuss the quotes?
• Have I organized my paper in a logical manner? Did I go from least important/shocking points to most important/shocking points?

Many also believe that global revision involves looking for issues like cohesion and the overall progression of your paper. If your paragraphs jump from point to point without a clear connection between the points, there is an issue with cohesion. If your paragraphs contain too many points, this is also an issue. Ideally, a paragraph contains one point that is thoroughly discussed and supported with credible evidence.

Lastly, If your paper has paragraphs that do not flow into each other, but change topic abruptly only to return to a previous thought later, your paper has poor cohesion.

A paper that includes smooth transitions is significantly easier to read and understand. It is preferable to keep all like thoughts together and to arrange your paragraphs in such a way that your argument builds, rather than laying everything out with equal weight.

Though the blueprint for your paper is in the thesis, the end result of your argument should not come early in the paper, but at the end. Allow the supporting paragraphs to build to your conclusions.

Local Revision

Local issues involve looking for clarity in sentences, ensuring coherence with your ideas. The greatest asset to avoiding and fixing local issues is to use varied sentence structure and to avoid using the same words repeatedly. Repeating the same sentence structure can make your paper feel mechanical and make an interesting topic feel boring.

Local revision also involves being mindful of lower order concerns, such as sentence structure, word choice, grammar, and spelling.

The final stage in writing a paper requires a review of what you have written. In this last read of your paper, you should look for any grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors that have slipped through the cracks during the revising stage, or that were introduced in your revisions.

Reading your paper aloud, or asking a friend to read your paper to you is a good way to catch errors. Often if you read your own paper, especially out loud, you can catch errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Though this step seems minor within the process of writing, it is an easy way to prevent the loss of points over simple mistakes.

Formatting, Inner-text Citation, and Works Cited

The formatting required for your paper will change depending on the field of your topic. Generally, the sciences and business and economics use APA or CSE formatting. English, and other humanities will use MLA, and History uses Chicago. The appearance of inner-text citations, and Works cited page will all be affected by these different formats.

Consult your syllabus or ask your professor to learn what format you should use. Guides for APA, Chicago, and MLA are available online .

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The Writing Process

In academic writing, there are many different phases of the writing process: Prewriting, Drafting, Feedback, Revising, Editing, and Proofreading. Many students worry about making their academic essays perfect the first time they are working on their papers, and this can often cause issues like writer's block. By following these stages, students can have a better outcome through the writing process.

Prewriting is the method of moving ideas from your brain to your paper. Sometimes, it can be difficult to get those creative juices going. That's where prewriting is beneficial.

There are many different techniques for prewriting. What might work for one individual may not work for another. The importance of this stage is finding something that works for you. Some common prewriting techniques include:

• Freewriting
• Clustering or Webbing
• Venn Diagram

First Draft

The first draft is the stage where writers work to assemble the pieces of their prewriting into some semblance of an order. Remember, first drafts are supposed to be terrible. If a writer focuses too much on perfecting the first draft, they can often become stuck. Here are some strategies for overcoming writing anxiety when working on a first draft:

• Let yourself off the hook: first drafts are supposed to be poorly written.
• Use talk-to-text technology on MS Word or Google Translate. Sometimes "talking it through" can help get the information out of your head and onto the page.
• If you're having difficulty writing the beginning of the draft, skip it and come back to it later. Start in the middle and then add the introduction and conclusion later.
• Handwrite your draft. The act of writing a draft by hand may encourage creativity.

Feedback is essential for great essays. It allows writers to see their draft through another person's perspective. Because writers spend a lot of time on their drafts, they might overlook where a sentence isn't clear, or where an argument may need to be strengthened.

• Receiving feedback from multiple sources might help you decide what changes you'd like to make to your draft.
• Not all feedback is equal. It's up to the writer what to do with the feedback that is given to them.

Next Drafts

Drafting is the process between the beginning of a written document and the final draft. Some essays may have two drafts, others may have fifty. Each draft should narrow the focus of the topic.

• Make big changes first, like organizing information, and adding or deleting large amounts of detail.
• Focus on transitions. How are the topics in each paragraph related to each other?
• Focus on word choice. Are you using the best possible words to describe your situation? Phrases like very cold can be replaced with frigid or freezing .
• Each draft is a messy process with lots of scribbles, marked out words and sentences, and added information.
• Each draft is also better than the previous draft. Don't be afraid to improve your writing!

With each draft, we encourage you to make use of our Submit A Paper option or come by the Writing Center for a face-to-face writing coaching session because it never hurts to have another person read your draft to help find issues.

Editing and Proofreading

Editing and Proofreading is part of the last stages of the writing process.

Editing is the process of correcting wordiness and focuses on word choice.

Proofreading focuses on correctness. It's also known as GUMP (Grammar, Usage, Mechanics, and Punctuation). This stage is where writers check for run-on sentences, spelling, and making sure commas are in the correct places.

Final Draft

This is the completed, polished, best version of your essay.

If you look back at your prewriting and first draft, you should see a significant difference between what you started with and your final draft.

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The Invention Process: Ten Strategies for Producing Writing

Getting Started

Invention is, simply, the process of identifying what to write. But, whether you’re new to writing or a prolific pro, invention doesn’t always feel simple when you’re stuck on a blank page or screen.

You may have learned in school a stage-oriented writing process that begins with invention (sometimes called “pre-writing”), moves to drafting, then feedback, revision, and editing, and ultimately publication. Researchers now acknowledge, much as practitioners have known, that the writing process isn’t a linear progression. In other words, we use invention not only to start a piece, but throughout the writing process.

This blog post lists ten invention strategies for “pre-writing” or getting un-stuck when the words won’t flow. Regardless of when the need occurs or whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, short stories or books, invention exercises can help.

Ten Invention Strategies

The list below presents a range of invention approaches. Some techniques help begin a project, other practices work best when you’ve already got some ideas, and some strategies may yield better results for particular writers. If one tool doesn’t work, try another. The goal is to write.

Freewriting

Freewriting focuses on rapidly producing words, phrases, sentences, and even paragraphs to bypass writing-inhibiting anxieties about word choice, grammar, spelling, or how a peer reviewer or editor might respond. To freewrite, set a timer for a specified period, perhaps 5 minutes, then put fingers to keyboard or around a pen, and write as fast as possible without slowing to edit or reject any ideas . The session might begin with “I don’t know what to write” and proceed from there. The focus in freewriting is getting ideas and phrases that jumpstart the writing.

Writers can use cell phone or online timers . Web-based freewriting tools include the punitive Write or Die , which deletes words if the writer doesn’t meet their stated goal, and Written? Kitten! , which displays a reward photo at the writer’s goal.

Writing “Invisibly”

Freewriters who re-read and edit during their timed sessions can turn to a strategy that prevents peeking. In this modified freewriting technique, brave and/or skilled typists open a fresh document, then turn off or tape a sheet of paper over the monitor to keep from seeing what they’re rapidly writing. (The danger, of course, is that the writing may end up looking like a cat walked across your keyboard.) The paper version of “invisible” writing is to pull a sheet of paper down over previously written lines.

Brainstorming

This classic activity similarly involves setting a timer and listing ideas as fast as possible without worrying about form, spelling, or editing. Brainstorming prohibits rejecting possibilities for any reason. While freewriting primarily focuses on generating prose, brainstorming involves listing ideas, concepts, and/or phrases one after another, as quickly as possible, until the session time expires.

After ending freewriting (or brainstorming), the writer looks over the session’s output, highlights key words, ideas, or sentences, and then chooses one of these as a focus for another invention session. This strategy enables the writer to develop a particular area. Repeating the looping produces even more material.

Writers often have strong feelings about outlining, or identifying the main structures of a piece before writing. While many writers are familiar with outlining a project before its onset, the reverse outline, which identifies the construction of a piece partly or wholly written, can also be an invention tool. For this technique, writers list in order the keywords or main points of previously written material. This framework can help the writer identify additional areas that can be written, expanded upon, or re-written.

Mapping/Clustering

This visual “mind-mapping” technique involves identifying a keyword, phrase, or name, placing it in a circle, and then attaching to the circle additional thoughts or ideas related to that term. The writer then branches additional related concepts off each term. The method helps writers both identify concepts and see relationships between them.

Writers can use mapping techniques on paper or online, such as through bubbl.us .

Flowcharting

Much as mapping can help writers visualize connections, flowcharting can help a writer visualize possible choices, a technique particularly useful for plotting character decisions. Writers can create flowcharts on paper or via free online flowchart software, such as draw.io and Lucidchart .

Double-Entry Listing

More linear than mapping and more directed than brainstorming, this method involves creating two columns. In one column, the writer places a word or phrase for a concept, theme, or other concern. On the other side, the writer lists details, evidence, or ideas supporting each identified concept, theme, or concern.

The dialogue technique involves either talking with another person or asking yourself questions about your writing. The process of articulating responses can help the writer identify material to write, as can answering questions, such as: What could create audience interest? What else does the reader need to know to make the material clear? Writers can create various who, what, when, where, why, and how questions to further develop the writing.

Writing about the Writing

Similar to talking to another person, the writing about the writing technique involves the writer articulating what they want  the writing to be. Less question-oriented than dialoguing, describing the subject or the writing problem can spur drafting a solution. In her famous Bird by Bird , Anne Lamott suggests writing a letter to someone, real or imagined, about the project because the letter’s informality and/or audience change can initiate ideas and words flowing.

Extending the Invention Process

For this blog post, I used multiple invention processes. To get started, I outlined a blog post structure to guide my drafting. I brainstormed invention sub-topics. When stuck mid-paragraph, I challenged myself to freewrite. As I proceeded with drafting and revising processes, I discussed the piece with a friend and asked myself questions. Writers don’t use invention processes only when starting to write fiction, but continuously until we submit or print any writing.

Have invention strategies of your own? Leave a comment below to share an idea!

Brenta Blevins is a writer, assistant professor, and researcher of digital rhetoric and composition. Her short fiction has appeared in such markets as  Analog  and  Daily Science Fiction . Her nonfiction has appeared in  Clarkesworld ,  Strange Horizons , and  NewMyths.com . She is a graduate of Clarion West. She tweets from @brentablevins.

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• AWELU contents
• Writing at university
• Different kinds of student texts
• Understanding instructions and stylesheets
• Understanding essay/exam questions
• Peer review instructions
• Dealing with feedback
• Checklist for writers
• Research writing resources
• Administrative writing resources
• LU language policy
• Introduction
• What characterises academic writing?
• The heterogeneity of academic writing
• Three-part essays
• IMRaD essays
• How to get started on your response paper
• Student literature review
• Annotated bibliography
• Three versions of the RA
• Examples of specificity within disciplines
• Reviews (review articles and book reviews)
• Popular science writing
• Research posters
• Grant proposals
• Writing for Publication
• Salutations
• Structuring your email
• Direct and indirect approaches
• Useful email phrases
• Language tips for email writers
• Writing memos
• Meeting terminology
• The writing process
• Identifying your audience
• Using invention techniques
• Research question
• Thesis statement
• Developing reading strategies
• Taking notes
• Identifying language resources
• Choosing a writing tool
• Framing the text: Title and reference list
• Structure of the whole text
• Structuring the argument
• Structure of introductions
• Structure within sections of the text
• Structure within paragraphs
• Signposting the structure
• Using sources
• What needs to be revised?
• How to revise
• Many vs. much
• Other quantifiers
• Quantifiers in a table
• Miscellaneous quantifiers
• Adjectives and adverbs
• Capitalisation
• Sentence fragment
• Run-on sentences
• What or which?
• Singular noun phrases connected by "or"
• Singular noun phrases connected by "either/or"
• Connected singular and plural noun phrases
• Noun phrases conjoined by "and"
• Subjects containing "along with", "as well as", and "besides"
• Indefinite pronouns and agreement
• Sums of money and periods of time
• Words that indicate portions
• Uncountable nouns
• Dependent clauses and agreement
• Agreement with the right noun phrase
• Some important exceptions and words of advice
• Atypical nouns
• The major word classes
• The morphology of the major word classes
• Words and phrases
• Elements in the noun phrase
• Classes of nouns
• Determiners
• Elements in the verb phrase
• Classes of main verbs
• Auxiliary verbs
• Primary auxiliary verbs
• Modal auxiliary verbs
• Meanings of modal auxiliaries
• Marginal auxiliary verbs
• Time and tense
• Simple and progressive forms
• The perfect
• Active and passive voice
• Adjective phrases
• Adverb phrases
• Personal pronouns
• Dummy pronouns
• Possessive pronouns
• Interrogative pronouns
• Indefinite pronouns
• Quantifiers
• Prepositions and prepositional phrases
• More on adverbials
• The order of subjects and verbs
• Subject-Verb agreement
• Hyphen and dash
• English spelling rules
• Commonly confused words
• Differences between British and American spelling
• Vocabulary awareness
• Useful words and phrases
• Using abbreviations
• Register types
• Formal vs. informal
• DOs & DON'Ts
• General information on dictionary use
• Online dictionary resources
• What is a corpus?
• Examples of the usefulness of a corpus
• Using the World Wide Web as a corpus
• Online corpus resources
• Different kinds of sources
• The functions of references
• Paraphrasing
• Summarising
• Reference accuracy
• Reference management tools
• Different kinds of reference styles
• Style format
• Elements of the reference list
• Documentary note style
• Writing acknowledgements
• What is academic integrity?
• Academic integrity and writing
• Academic integrity at LU
• Different kinds of plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• About Awelu

• Start here AWELU contents Student writing resources Research writing resources Administrative writing resources LU language policy
• Genres Introduction The Nature of Academic Writing Student writing genres Writing in Academic Genres Writing for Publication Writing for Administrative Purposes
• Writing The writing process Pre-writing stage Writing stage Rewriting stage
• Language Introduction Common problems and how to avoid them Selective mini grammar Coherence Punctuation Spelling Focus on vocabulary Register and style Dictionaries Corpora - resources for writer autonomy References
• Referencing Introduction Different kinds of sources The functions of references How to give references Reference accuracy Reference management tools Using a reference style Quick guides to reference styles Writing acknowledgements
• Academic integrity What is academic integrity? Academic integrity and writing Academic integrity at LU Plagiarism

Writing stage

The writing (or drafting) stage consists of the steps involved transforming ideas and data into a coherent text.

When material has been collected and a topic or thesis has been formulated, it is time to start writing. The writing stage is thus the main part of the writing process. Often writing at this stage is done in several steps – if the writing is part of a course assignment, the drafting of the text may consist of several instalments that are submitted to a supervisor and perhaps also to peers.

What to think about during the writing (drafting) stage

During the writing stage, the text develops from a tentative first draft to a full text. Two areas to focus on at this stage concern how to structure the text and how to use and refer to sources.

In order to enhance legibility and thus impact, writers need to structure their texts. Read about different levels of text structure here:

• Structuring the text

In academic writing, correct referencing is important. Find out the basics of referencing here:

GKT103: General Knowledge for Teachers – Essays

Pre-Writing

Sitting down for an exam and reading an essay prompt can be intimidating. One way to ease your nerves and help you focus on the task is to pre-write. Pre-writing is a way to think through the essay question, gather your thoughts, and keep yourself from becoming overwhelmed. This resource explains pre-writing and shows strategies you can practice now and use on exam day to help ensure that you start your essay writing off on the right foot!

Planning the Structure of an Essay

Planning based on audience and purpose.

Identifying the target audience and purpose of an essay is a critical part of planning the structure and techniques that are best to use. It's important to consider the following:

• Is the the purpose of the essay to educate, announce, entertain, or persuade?
• Who might be interested in the topic of the essay?
• Who would be impacted by the essay or the information within it?
• What does the reader know about this topic?
• What does the reader need to know in order to understand the essay's points?
• What kind of hook is necessary to engage the readers and their interest?
• What level of language is required? Words that are too subject-specific may make the writing difficult to grasp for readers unfamiliar with the topic.
• What is an appropriate tone for the topic? A humorous tone that is suitable for an autobiographical, narrative essay may not work for a more serious, persuasive essay.

Hint: Answers to these questions help the writer to make clear decisions about diction (i.e., the choice of words and phrases), form and organization, and the content of the essay.

Use Audience and Purpose to Plan Language

In many classrooms, students may encounter the concept of language in terms of correct versus incorrect. However, this text approaches language from the perspective of appropriateness. Writers should consider that there are different types of communities, each of which may have different perspectives about what is "appropriate language" and each of which may follow different rules, as John Swales discussed in "The Concept of Discourse Community". Essentially, Swales defines discourse communities as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals".

Writers (and readers) may be more familiar with a home community that uses a different language than the language valued by the academic community. For example, many people in Hawai‘i speak Hawai‘i Creole English (HCE colloquially regarded as "Pidgin"), which is different from academic English. This does not mean that one language is better than another or that one community is homogeneous in terms of language use; most people "code-switch" from one "code" (i.e., language or way of speaking) to another. It helps writers to be aware and to use an intersectional lens to understand that while a community may value certain language practices, there are several types of language practices within our community.

What language practices does the academic discourse community value? The goal of first-year-writing courses is to prepare students to write according to the conventions of academia and Standard American English (SAE). Understanding and adhering to the rules of a different discourse community does not mean that students need to replace or drop their own discourse. They may add to their language repertoire as education continues to transform their experiences with language, both spoken and written. In addition to the linguistic abilities they already possess, they should enhance their academic writing skills for personal growth in order to meet the demands of the working world and to enrich the various communities they belong to.

Use Techniques to Plan Structure

Before writing a first draft, writers find it helpful to begin organizing their ideas into chunks so that they (and readers) can efficiently follow the points as organized in an essay.

First, it's important to decide whether to organize an essay (or even just a paragraph) according to one of the following:

• Chronological order (organized by time)
• Spatial order (organized by physical space from one end to the other)
• Prioritized order (organized by order of importance)

There are many ways to plan an essay's overall structure, including mapping and outlining.

Mapping (which sometimes includes using a graphic organizer) involves organizing the relationships between the topic and other ideas. The following is example (from ReadWriteThink.org, 2013) of a graphic organizer that could be used to write a basic, persuasive essay:

Outlining is also an excellent way to plan how to organize an essay. Formal outlines use levels of notes, with Roman numerals for the top level, followed by capital letters, Arabic numerals, and lowercase letters. Here's an example:

• Hook/Lead/Opener: According to the Leilani was shocked when a letter from Chicago said her "Aloha Poke" restaurant was infringing on a non-Hawaiian Midwest restaurant that had trademarked the words "aloha" (the Hawaiian word for love, compassion, mercy, and other things besides serving as a greeting) and "poke" (a Hawaiian dish of raw fish and seasonings).
• Background information about trademarks, the idea of language as property, the idea of cultural identity, and the question about who owns language and whether it can be owned.
• Thesis Statement (with the main point and previewing key or supporting points that become the topic sentences of the body paragraphs): While some business people use language and trademarks to turn a profit, the nation should consider that language cannot be owned by any one group or individual and that former (or current) imperialist and colonialist nations must consider the impact of their actions on culture and people groups, and legislators should bar the trademarking of non-English words for the good of internal peace of the country.
• Legislators should bar the trademarking of non-English words for the good and internal peace of the country.
• Conclusion (Revisit the Hook/Lead/Opener, Restate the Thesis, End with a Twist - a strong more globalized statement about why this topic was important to write about)

Note about outlines: Informal outlines can be created using lists with or without bullets. What is important is that main and subpoint ideas are linked and identified.

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• The Writing Process
• Paragraphs and Essays
• Unity and Coherence in Essays
• Proving the Thesis/Critical Thinking
• Appropriate Language

Related Pages

Good writing is usually the result of a process of pre-writing, drafting, reviewing, revising, and rewriting.  It’s rare that anyone is able to express his or her thoughts in the best way possible on the first try although the more we practice, the better we become at it. Experienced, published writers readily admit that they have revised their writing several times before publication.

Revise means  to see again . After we’ve done our first draft, it’s helpful to leave it for a while before looking at it again. While having others read the paper may help, the goal is to become self-editors and see the writing as others would see it. We need to be sure that it says what we mean to communicate in a way that will show the legitimacy of our position.

A good essay must prove the thesis: a one-sentence statement taking a position. Once you have a thesis, even though you may change it, it’s easier to formulate ideas about the body paragraphs since they just have to prove the thesis.

Proof paragraphs are just reasons why your thesis is right. Just as an essay has a controlling idea expressed in the thesis statement, paragraphs also have a controlling idea expressed in a topic sentence.

While experienced writers sometimes take poetic liberties in some contexts such as fiction or informal writing, good writers know how to use proper grammar and punctuation, and in college writing, it should be used.

Proofreading carefully helps to ensure that the writing says what we want it to say and that it uses proper grammar. Sometimes, it helps to read the paper aloud. It’s easy to miss an error.

Whether you are writing a paragraph, an essay, another type of assignment for school such as a reaction paper, or simply a letter, here are key elements to remember.

Subject, Purpose, and Audience

• Subject –  (picking the right topic, narrowing the topic, supporting the topic)
• Audience – For whom are you writing? (experts, teachers, general public?)
• Purpose – (explaining, persuading, comparing, entertaining….)

Writing is a Process

• Pre-writing (freewriting, brainstorming, clustering, asking questions (research), keeping a Journal)
• Organizing (grouping, eliminating, adding) and narrowing the topic (focus on a point)
• Rough Draft
• Revising (self-check, peer  review, tutoring)
• Final Copy (typed)

Pre-writing: Free-writing, Brainstorming, Clustering, Asking Questions (Research), Keeping a Journal

Pre-writing consists of various strategies to help overcome a writing block, to get ideas, or just to get organized. Whether you are writing a letter or doing a writing assignment for school, one or more of the following may be used as needed.

1.     Focused Free-writing

More “poetic” than typical prose writing for college classes. Contains many vivid details and extra information that will need to be cut, added to, or rearranged.

2.     Brainstorming

A filled page of just word or sentence fragments. Complete sentences are not required, but a large amount of ideas should be present. Add details to fill the page.

3.    Clustering

Start with the topic in the center and draw spokes outward as thoughts take you in new, more detailed directions. A cluster typically takes a full page.

4.     Asking Questions (Research)

Ask yourself the reporter’s six questions: Who? What? Where? Why? When, How? Use these questions to focus on what you really want to write about and what you know about.

When accessing sources beyond your own knowledge is appropriate – either you don’t know enough about the topic or the assignment requires outside research – find out what others say about the topic or research question

5.     Keeping a Journal

Your journal is a private place where you can develop ideas! When you see something interesting or have a new, exciting thought, write it down and use it for a later writing assignment.

Narrowing the Topic – Focus on a Point

A paragraph, an essay, or a research paper (also called  research essay ), must focus on a point.

• The point of a paragraph is called a  topic sentence .
• The  topic sentence  of a paragraph tells the reader what the paragraph will prove.
• The point of an essay or research paper is called the  thesis .
• A  thesis  tells the reader what the paper will prove.

An essay has different types of paragraphs:

• Introduction (introductory paragraph) – gives a background and states the thesis. The topic sentence of an introductory paragraph is called the thesis and it belongs at the end of the first paragraph.
• Body paragraphs – each of which gives a different reason with supporting details on why the thesis is accurate. The topic sentence of a body paragraph belongs at the beginning of the paragraph.
• Concluding paragraph – sums up the proof and restates the thesis and/or draws an implication from the information presented depending on instructor preference. The topic sentence of a concluding paragraph is a restatement of the thesis and may go anywhere in the concluding paragraph.

In some assignments, you are given a question to answer to form a thesis or topic sentence. This type of assignment usually does not present a problem in finding a focus. For example, if your assignment is to research what treatment is best for a particular disease or whether the cycles of the moon affect human beings, the result of your research will generate an answer to the question which will be your thesis statement. An example of this is "The best treatment for ovarian cancer is..." The topic sentences for your body paragraphs will each be one reason as to why that treatment is the best.

In other cases, you are given a topic and you must narrow your topic to find a focus. Here are some strategies to help develop a one-sentence topic sentence or a thesis:

• Narrow your topic by thinking about what you know about the topic and a specific area that interests you if there is not a research component.  For example, if the topic is about how computers have affected our lives, you may think about the various types of computers and focus in on personal computers.  The question then becomes “How have personal computers affected our lives.”
• If there is a research component, think about what questions you have about the topic and/or what your exploratory research has found. For example, let's say you research the topic of how computers have affected our lives. You then find information on the different types of computers used in appliances and how we use them every day. One of your questions may be "How have computers used in household appliances affected our lives?”
• Think about your topic until you can find a main idea or question that is not as broad as the topic your instructor gave you if you were assigned a topic. This should be an idea that is interesting to you and something you know about.
• A thesis statement should include both the subject and the controlling idea.

Drafting, Reviewing, Revising, and Editing

Regardless of the type of writing, the first attempt must be considered a rough draft.  Don’t worry too much about grammar. The first goal is to get the ideas down. Generate ideas by reviewing your pre-writing efforts if you use any of those strategies.

• Are there any natural groups that you can arrange your ideas into?
• Take the most promising groups and add information and details.
• Any ideas that do not fit into these groups or don’t have many details should be discarded.

Once the first draft is complete, you must review it to see if the ideas and wording flow logically and support the topic sentence within a paragraph and the thesis of an academic essay. Paragraphs must be limited to information about the topic sentence. Related ideas must be together in one section. There must be an internal organization from paragraph to paragraph that the reader can easily follow. Transitions may be needed from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph for the sentences and/or paragraph to flow from one to the next. See Paragraphs in Related Pages on the right sidebar for more information.

Revise as needed by moving or adding sentences or paragraphs, and modifying wording. The last step is editing where you make sure the writing is grammatically correct. There must be sentences and not fragments. The punctuation should be accurate. Check for spelling.

Writing an Academic Essay

An academic essay has a particular type of organization with an introduction paragraph with a thesis, body paragraphs which prove the thesis, and a concluding paragraph which sums up the proof and restates the thesis. See Essay Organization for more information.

To write an academic essay, it is helpful to start with an outline. An outline is a plan of what your essay will look like.

• Start with the thesis statement.
• Then, list the separate reasons why your thesis is accurate as I, II, and so on. These will be the topic sentences for your body paragraphs.  The number of paragraphs will be determined by the assigned length of the paper. These must be complete sentences.
• Under each of the topic sentences, include the details that fit into this group.

An essay can be written right from the outline. You would have to add background information before the thesis to complete the introductory paragraph. You would have one paragraph each for sections I, II, III, and IV, depending on how many sections are in your outline. Your concluding paragraph just sums up the proof in the body and restates the thesis.  

See Related Pages on the right sidebar for more information.

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