The Process of Writing

Introduction 

To complete any task or chore, a person must go through a process, a series of actions that leads to a result.  Think about the process you went through to arrive at school or work this morning: waking, drinking, eating, showering, dressing, driving.  Each of those stages is a process, for there are substages within each stage.  For example, you likely slipped on pants before you stepped into shoes.  Did you struggle to complete the entire process?  There may have been external pressures, but you did not have to contemplate your actions at every stage.  The reason: the more experience you have in successfully completing a task or chore, the more habitual the process is.

Your process was different from mine in some way.  You may have combined some stages--drinking and eating while driving to school, for example--or you may have skipped a stage--bathing before you slept, for example.  Similarly, the process of writing is variable.  A writer does not necessarily begin at the first stage and progress linearly to the last stage.  Advanced writers are able to combine and skip stages without adverse effects, and they return to an earlier stage when they revise their works, which they do many times.  Furthermore, an advanced writer will adapt his process in accordance with the kind of writing he is doing.

With respect to e-mails, my compositional process consists of three stages: writing, revising and editing.  With respect to formal discourse--an essay such as this--my compositional process is more comprehensive.  After I conduct research, I generate information on sheets of paper, pausing only to refer to external information or to discover where my words are leading me.  The initial draft is messy, with proofreader's marks and misspellings everywhere.  After hours, days or weeks away from the draft, I read, evaluate and revise it.  As I type the text into the word processor, I revise it again, focusing on unity, coherence and development.  The next day I edit with respect to tone, punctuation, grammar and mechanics.  If I do not have a title, I create one, which is the final stage of my process.

The following process is even more comprehensive than the aforementioned one.  It is the process I adhered to when I was a freshman in college.  I suggest that intermediate writers adhere to it until they are able to combine or skip stages without adverse effects.

Purpose

Because writing is a social activity, a way to communicate with others, before you begin to write, you need to consider the reason(s) you will be writing.  You will write more effectively if you answer the following question: Are you writing to inform, to persuade, or to entertain?  Sometimes you will have multiple reasons to write.  For example, if you were to review a movie, you would evaluate it and persuade readers to either view it or not, all while entertaining them.  Thinking about your purpose(s) will allow you to identify a topic and will help you to generate and organize ideas.

Audience

Each time you write, you must think carefully about whom your audience is and how they will respond to your information.  Sometimes writers have to appeal to multiple and possibly conflictive audiences: teachers and classmates, men and women, rich and poor, conservatives and liberals.  At other times the identification of a particular audience is difficult, especially when creating a website.  Knowing just a few characteristics of your audience will help you anticipate and satisfy your readers' interests and needs.  Choose content, coverage, examples and tone in accordance with your audience's requirements, asking yourself the questions that follow.  Who likely will read your work?  What are some reasons they will read your work?  What do they know about your subject?  What kinds of information will they need?  What values and beliefs do they hold?  What kinds of examples will elicit positive responses?  How will you convince them to accept your argument?  You will need to continually think about your audience throughout the process of writing.

Topic

Because there are hundreds of ways to generate a topic, I will discuss only the most successful generative methods I have been using: reading, brainstorming, journal writing, listing, mapping, and freewriting.

Reading can be an excellent stimulus when you are not precisely sure of what your topic will be.  Though you may not depend on outside sources, reading about a tentative topic may help you generate ideas.

Brainstorming is a technique by which you can generate a topic.  Place a subject at the top of a sheet of paper, and list any word or phrase that comes to your mind.  Set a time frame, and list items as quickly as you can.  All items are legitimate for your list, since an allegedly bad idea can lead to a good one.

Journal writing provides you an opportunity to converse with yourself in your own language about what you have been studying.  You can pose questions, develop ideas, reflect on readings, speculate and explore, and try to pinpoint confusions.

Another method for generating a topic is to list the attributes that a subject possesses.  Number the items of your list.  Then, ask what the uses or consequences of each item are.

If you enjoy thinking visually, try mapping your ideas.  Begin by writing the subject as briefly as possible (a single word is best).  Circle the subject and draw three, four or five short spokes from the circle.  At the end of each spoke place one of the journalistic questions--who, what, where, why and how--making a longer branch off the spoke for every answer to a question.

Freewriting is a technique you may want to try when you are asked to write but have no topic.  According to Peter Elbow:

          The idea is simply to write for ten minutes (later on, perhaps
          fifteen or twenty).  Don't stop for anything.  Go quickly
          without rushing.  Never stop to look back, to cross something
          out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word
          or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing.  If
          you can't think of a word or a spelling, just use a squiggle or
          else write, "I can't think of it."  Just put down something.  The
          easiest thing is just to put down whatever is in your mind.  If
          you get stuck [sic] it's fine to write [sic] "I can't think what to
          say, [sic] I can't think what to say [sic]" as many times as you
          want; or repeat the last word you wrote over and over again;
          or anything else.  The only requirement is that you never
          stop.*  

Information

All the aforementioned methods are also useful when you need to generate information, when you need to explore your own thoughts and feelings about a topic.  But in an academic or professional setting, you will be required to include material from outside sources, which means that you must be able to read critically.  The following strategy will help you do such.

Before you read look ahead, previewing the source and asking yourself which part of the source relates to your topic.  While you are reading, be active--underlining relative information, writing notes that summarize passages, writing sectional headings, and highlighting important information.  Monitor your progress while you are reading.  Do you understand the material?  How does the material compare with your predictions?  Do you need to redirect your efforts--that is, to preview another selection or to generate another topic?

After you have enough information to satisfy your audience's interests and needs, you will need to consolidate the information.  Review your notes; highlight important information; organize your notes.  Next, evaluate each source, distinguishing facts (verifiable statements) from opinions (interpretations of facts).  Finally, distinguish your assumptions from those of the author(s).

Assumptions also are known as warrants, core beliefs that shape the way each of us views the world.  There are three categories of assumptions: value, descriptive and definitional.  Value assumptions are beliefs about the way the world ought to be, about the way people ought to behave.  Descriptive assumptions are beliefs about the way the world is, about what is true.  Definitional assumptions are definitions of key terms on which a discourse rests.

I will discuss the importance of assumptions later.  What you need to know about them now is that an author may state his/her assumptions directly or indirectly--that is, they may be explicit or implicit.  Because assumptions provide the bases for decisions and opinions, if you do not distinguish your assumptions from those of the author(s), you more than likely will conflate them, which will lead to misunderstanding.

Organization

When you know you will incorporate information from numerous sources into an essay, you will need to read in a way that enables you to infer relationships among those sources.  To do such you will need to divide the topic into parts and to title each division.  Then, cross-reference each part, listing the specific pages of each source that treats each division.  Next, summarize the information or author's ideas about each part, considering the following inferences as you do such: comparison, contrast, example, definition, cause and effect, and personal response.  Comparison: does one author agree with another?  Contrast: does an author disagree with another author?  Example: does material in one source illustrate a statement in another source?  Definition: is there material in a source that may help you define or redefine a term in another source?  Cause and effect: is there material from one source that may allow you to explain directly the reason certain events occur in other sources?  Personal response: do you agree or disagree with points made in one or more sources?  Develop your response(s) by referring to specific passages.

Not all the information you have will be useful.  Therefore, you must select the most promising ideas and categorize them.  Organize information within categories to clarify your ideas and their relation to each other.  After you recognize patterns of relation within each category, you will be able to recognize patterns of relation across categories.  Identify main, or general, points within each category and the subordinate, or specific, points within a category.  Some examples of subordinate points, also known as backing, are moral principles, testimony of experts, statistical data, and empirical results.  Organizing material within a category is an excellent technique for revealing which of your main points will need further development when you begin to write a first draft.

Most intermediate writers skip the organizational stage, thinking that the creation of a formal or informal outline will consume too much time to be beneficial.  But advanced writers experientially know that organizing information within categories actually conserves time because it allows them to develop completely each main point.  For them the revisionary stage is a stylistic event, not a compositional nightmare.

Working Thesis

All your effort in thinking about your purpose, identifying your audience, selecting a topic, generating information, and organizing that information will lead to a thesis--a general, debatable statement about your topic.  Initially you will create a working thesis: a statement that, based on everything you know about your topic, is a reasonably accurate summary of what you will write.  In the act of writing, you will discover, discard and revise ideas.  Before you write you cannot determine how your draft will evolve and how, subsequently, your thesis will change.

What is a good working thesis?  A strong thesis is clear and concise, regardless of where it appears or how long it is.  A strong thesis focuses on a substantive issue, an issue that readers will want to read.  A strong thesis is debatable, which means reasonable people may disagree with it.  A strong thesis requires backing and will need qualification.

First Draft

Every writer needs a place, some space, and time to write.  Choose a setting that is comfortable, ensure that nobody will distract you, and reserve a significant quantity of time.  Your goal is to create and to finish a version of your discourse.  When you accept the fact that what you write in your first draft will not necessarily be in your final draft, you will be able to continue to write when you reach a troublesome part.  Do not allow your concerns about particular words or sentences block your momentum.  Complete one section of your discourse until you finish.

Revision

After some time has passed, read your first draft.  Reconsider your working thesis and the extent your work addresses it.  Create a thesis, a version of your working thesis that accurately reveals the primary point of your discourse.  Check for unity.  Do the sentences of each paragraph focus on a main idea?  Do the paragraphs of each section focus on a specific part of the thesis?  Do the sections of the discourse develop the thesis?  Check for coherence.  Are the sentences of each paragraph orderly?  Are the paragraphs of each section orderly?  Are the sections of the discourse orderly?  Check for development.  Do the sentences of each paragraph provide details that explain and illustrate each paragraph's main idea?  Do the paragraphs of each section provide details that explain and illustrate a specific part of the thesis?  Do the sections of the discourse provide important details that develop the thesis?

Editing

If you think your revision meets the interests and needs of your audience, you are ready to edit.  To edit is to rewrite at the level of the sentence.  You will need to focus on more than punctuation, grammar and mechanics.  Ensure your diction is concrete (perceptible by the senses) and specific (refers to particular people, places and things).  Remember, appropriate language suits your writing situation--your purpose, audience and topic.  Standard English is always appropriate.  Regionalisms, slang, colloquialisms, neologisms, technical jargon, and euphemisms are sometimes appropriate.  But nonstandard dialects; double talk; pretentious writing; stereotypes; and sexist, racist and ethnocentric language are rarely or never appropriate.  Ensure you are succinct--that is, you have avoided wordy verbal phrases (changing, for example, would like to work to want to work), redundancies (changing first began to began, for example), and strings of prepositional phrases (changing for the people in America to for the Americans).  You also need to analyze your transitions (words and phrases that connect sentences, paragraphs and sections), ensuring the discourse is seamless.  What you do not want to do is solely rely on your computer to edit your work, for it cannot assess context, and context determines, for example, whether a colloquialism is appropriate.

Title

You might have created a title before you began to write your first draft, and doing such probably helped you focus.  But your discourse may have evolved differently than you had planned.  Thus, your title is a working title.  You always need to ensure your title accurately reflects the content of your discourse.  On the basis of your thesis, devise a title for your discourse.  Readers like titles that help them anticipate what they will be reading.  Furthermore, titles contain keywords necessary for electronic searches.

Conclusion

The process of writing consists of many stages, and each stage has substages.  The more comprehensive your process is, the more likely you will achieve success.  If you are an intermediate writer, I suggest you engage in every stage, regardless the kind of writing, until you are able to modify the process without adverse effects.  There are four forms of writing that will recur throughout your academic career: summary, evaluation, analysis and synthesis.  Each requires more engagement in the process than the one that precedes it.

A summary is a brief, neutral restatement of a source.  A summary answers: what are the main points of the author's discourse?  To summarize a source, restate, in your own words, the author's thesis (central idea).  If the selection is short (one to ten pages), write several sentences about each section.  If the selection is long, try to identify divisions and write several sentences about each section.  Join your paragraphical or sectional summaries with your summary of the thesis.

An evaluation is a review of a source.  An evaluation answers: how effective is the author's discourse?  Introduce the author and topic in your first paragraph.  A sentence in the introductory paragraph may hint at your general impression of the source.  Summarize the source.  Introduce the author's main points, and discuss each point thoroughly.  Assess the source, explicitly stating your criteria for evaluation.

An analysis  is an investigation of a source that requires the use of a specific set of principles.  An analysis answers many questions, including: how does the discourse work, and what does it mean?  Determine what the main points of the thesis are.  Summarize each of the points.  Convert each summary into a specific question, and use each question as a basis to investigate the source.

A synthesis (a proper academic essay) is a compendium of material from several sources.  A synthesis also answers many questions, including: what are my views on the topic, and what are other views on the topic?  Do not be tentative about expressing your own thoughts and emotions, for they are just as important as the other views on the topic.  To synthesize information fully engage in the process I delineated.  It initially may seem overwhelming.  But if you habituate yourself to the process, you may--gasp--begin to enjoy writing.

Please refer to "Scenario" if the aforementioned process seems abstract.

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          *Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1998) 1.