Chapter 4 - The Writing Process(es)

When a reader examines a piece of professional writing—like an essay in an issue of The Atlantic or a chapter in a history textbook—it can seem so perfect as to be impossible for an amateur writer to learn from. “Sure,” a reader might think, “so-and-so famous writer can sit down and spit out this genius essay, but I can’t.” What a reader may not realize, however, is that behind every piece of polished, beautiful prose is a lot of work. When readers only see the results, they can forget that every writer and every piece of writing has a process—and sometimes a very lengthy one!—behind it.

In this chapter, we seek to demystify the writing processes behind any “finished” piece of writing so that you might begin to develop the kind of flexible and nimble processes that will help you write not only for class but for your career and personal life.

1. What is the are Writing Process(es)?  

2. Preparatory Writing

3. Drafting

4. Revising

5. Editing/Proofreading

6. Publishing/Submitting

1. What is the are Writing Process(es)?  

No matter what type of writing you are doing, academic, professional, or personal, you use a writing process. While you may sometimes hear writers or teachers refer to “the writing process,” you’ll see that we’ve edited that heading to capture that there is no single writing process. Any writing process consists of different activities a writer engages in to produce a good piece of writing; the order and length of time spent doing those various activities changes based on the rhetorical situation a writer finds themselves in.

Exercise: Sketch Your Writing Process

For 5 minutes, write about your typical writing process. When you start a writing assignment for school, what do you typically do first? second?... last? What are the steps you take?

Most writing processes include these activities:

• Preparatory Writing—Everything you do before you start writing a project draft.

• Drafting—Getting words on the page. You’ll likely hear your professors talk about having multiple complete drafts of an assignment (a first draft, second draft, final draft, etc.), meaning that they expect that you’ll get an initial version of your project together early and then make changes to it over time before submitting it.

• Revising—Reconsidering your writing and refining the style and structure of an essay or project. Typically, you’ll ask someone to read through your work and share ideas about strengthening it.

• Editing/Proofreading—Correcting grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other sentence-level issues.

• Publishing/Submitting--Sharing the final draft with your reader.

Figure 0.1 “The Writing Process”, CC-0, by Virginia Western Community College

A writing process is not a series of neatly linear steps, and a writing process will differ from writer to writer and from situation to situation. Sometimes, you may discover mid-draft that your initial argument isn’t working out, so you need to return to the drawing board of preparatory writing. At other times, the rhetorical situation you find yourself in will dictate certain parts of your process. For example, if your boss asks for a memo on their desk by 9 a.m. the next morning, you won’t have much time at all for doing preparatory writing exercises or getting feedback from a colleague; alternatively, if you’re working on a book-length manuscript, you may draft and revise for years. Often, the different activities of a writing process proceed erratically and overlap; the important thing is to keep writing and improving until you have the best final product possible.

2. Preparatory Writing

“Preparatory writing” describes all of the thinking and planning that precedes the actual writing of a paper.

Understanding the Assignment

Before you get started, make sure you understand the writing assignment by reading over your assignment sheet and asking questions of your professor and/or TA.

• Consider the assignment’s length. A two-page paper has a much narrower topic than a ten-page paper would have. If there is no page limit, consider the nature of the assignment to suggest its length. A summary of a chapter will be much shorter than the original chapter. An analysis of a poem will likely be longer than the poem itself.

• Second, establish the assignment’s purpose. Knowing what you are trying to accomplish with your writing is essential. One purpose may be to express personal feelings or impressions to the audience, which is expressive writing. One purpose may be to teach the audience about something, which is informative writing. One purpose may be to persuade the audience to think or act in a certain way, which is persuasive writing. Other more specific purposes can include entertaining, analyzing, hypothesizing, assessing, summarizing, questioning, reporting, recommending, suggesting, evaluating, describing, recounting, requesting, and instructing.
  • Here are some of the types of writing that you may be asked to do for class, for your labor position, or in your future career:
    • Personal writing—personal expression about an experience, event, situation, or information.
    • Metacognitive/reflective writing—writing that entails thinking about your thinking, writing, or working processes.
    • Case study—a written report about a situation, group, or person that one has studied.
    • Review/Evaluation—summarizing and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of a piece of writing, a text, or an event.
    • Technical report—clear, detailed report of the procedures undertaken and the results obtained during a scientific or technical procedure.
    • Lab report—writing that details the steps taken and the results of a scientific experiment.
    • Book report—writing that summarizes a book's contents and some commentary concerning the writer’s opinion of the book.
    • Critical analysis/critique—writing an informed review and an analysis of the significance of a piece of writing or an event.
    • Bibliography—writing a complete list of all resources consulted during a argumentch project.
    • Annotated bibliography—writing not only a list of all resources consulted for a research project but also including a summary and analysis of each resource.
    • Literature review—writing that focuses on a specific research topic and the critical aspects of the literature consulted during the research process.
    • Research paper—the final product following an extended period of research, critical thinking, and composition that encompasses the writer’s ideas supported by a combination of primary and secondary sources.
    • E-mail—writing, often in the workplace, that takes the place of phone calls or memos
    • Web writing—writing web content that needs to be direct, concise, and credible.
    • Midterm/final exam essay—exams often include short essay questions that need to be written in a short amount of time.
    • Resume & other ‘business’ writing—writing that must communicate pertinent information in a concise, easy-to-read format.
• Next, determine the assignment’s audience. You must determine to whom you are writing. An audience can be an individual or a group. An audience can be general or specialized. Once you define your audience, you must determine how much the audience already knows about the subject to gauge how much or little background information to include. For example, if your teacher is your only audience, you may not need to summarize a text your class read when you want to refer to it in your writing; however, if your assignment asks you to write to an imagined public reader, you may indeed need to gloss the text for those who would be less familiar with the text.

• Then, consider the assignment’s occasion. The occasion for which you are writing will determine the formality and scope of a writing project. An in-class writing assignment will differ from an out-of-class formal assignment. A memo for fellow office workers will differ from a report written for the company’s president. A letter to an aunt will differ from a letter written to a bank to request a personal loan.

• Finally, assess your previous knowledge of the subject. Before writing, you need to determine what you already know about a topic, what you need to find out about the subject, and what you think about the subject. Personal essays draw upon your own experiences and observations; research essays require you to gain new knowledge through research.

TIP: Prepatory Writing vs. Pre-Writing

While you’ll often hear what we’re calling “preparatory writing” referred to as “pre-writing,” that label is a bit of a misnomer. You should write—quite a bit even!—during this so-called “pre-writing” stage. For example, if you have a printed copy of an assignment sheet, you may want to make notes directly on it about the assignment’s length, purpose, audience, and occasion. Alternatively, you may sit down with the list of rhetorical analysis questions from Chapter 2 and answer them in a notebook to help you identify all the elements of the rhetorical situation your assignment places you in. If your writing teacher prefers the language of “pre-writing,” just know that they likely mean “the writing you do to get started,” not “you shouldn’t be writing yet.”

Topic Choice

The next step in preparatory writing, and often the hardest, is choosing a topic for an essay if one has not already been assigned. Sometimes, your instructor will give you an idea to begin an assignment, and other times, your instructor will ask you to come up with a topic on your own. A good topic not only covers what an assignment will be about but also fits its purpose and audience. Moreover, a good topic is one that you want to write about. When you can’t choose your overall topic, you can still find ways to connect an assignment to your personal or academic interests. As you think about what topic you’d like to write about, you might consider drawing on the following:

1. Using Experience and Observations

When selecting a topic, you may want to consider something that interests you or something based on your own life and personal experiences. Even everyday observations can lead to interesting topics. After writers think about their experiences and observations, they often take notes on paper to better develop their thoughts. These notes help writers discover what they have to say about their topic.

TIP: Using Observations

Have you seen an attention-grabbing story on your local news channel? Many current issues appear on television, in magazines, and online. These can all inspire your writing

1. Reading

Reading plays a vital role in all the stages of the writing process, but it first figures in the development of ideas and topics. Different kinds of documents can help you choose a topic and develop that topic. For example, a magazine advertising the latest research on the threat of global warming may catch your eye at WalMart or in the Hutchins Library. This cover may interest you, and you may consider global warming as a topic. Or, for a different example, maybe a courtroom drama TV show sparks your curiosity about a particular lawsuit or legal controversy. After you choose a topic, critical reading is essential to developing a topic. While reading almost any document, you evaluate the author’s point of view by thinking about their main idea and their support. When you judge the author’s argument, you discover more about the author’s opinion and your own. Strong writers are almost always voracious readers, so one of the best things you can do for yourself as a writer is read often and read widely. Moreover, writing as you read will help you collect good ideas for future assignments. Take lots of notes, or consider starting a journal where you jot down interesting things you learn from readings.

TIP: Time Mangagement with the Writing Process

The steps in the writing process may seem time-consuming at first, but following these steps will save you time in the future. The more you plan in the beginning by reading and doing preparatory writing, the less time you may spend drafting and editing later because your ideas will develop more swiftly

1. Topic or Question?

In more research-oriented courses, your professor will ask you to develop a research question. Please see our chapter on Research for more information about how to develop a research question.

1. Focused Freewriting

Freewriting is an exercise in which you write about a given topic for a set amount of time (usually three to five minutes). Once again, “pre-writing,” though a prevalent term, is a misnomer—even in this pre-writing stage, you should be doing a lot of writing! When freewriting to explore an idea, you may jot down any thoughts that come to your mind. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Instead, write as quickly as you can without stopping. If you get stuck, just copy the same word or phrase repeatedly until you come up with a new thought.

To generate ideas in your freewriting, you may think about your personal experience with your topic, readings that you have enjoyed or that have challenged your thinking, and questions about your topic. Following the various threads of your thought through writing may lead in interesting and unexpected directions, revealing to yourself what you actually have to say about a topic. Allow yourself to write freely and unselfconsciously. Once you start writing with few limitations, you may find you have more to say than you first realized. Your flow of thoughts can lead you to discover even more ideas about the topic. Freewriting may even lead you to discover another topic that excites you even more than your original idea. Once you’ve committed to a topic, return to freewriting to help narrow it further or develop supporting ideas.

1. Brainstorming

Brainstorming can be done orally or on paper. You can make a list on your own or in a group with your classmates. Start with a blank sheet of paper (or a blank computer document) and write your general topic across the top. Underneath your topic, make a list of more specific ideas. Think of your general topic as a broad category and the list items as things that fit in that category. Often, you will find that one item can lead to the next, creating a flow of ideas that can help you narrow your focus to a more specific paper topic. Try brainstorming for ideas with fellow students, jotting down ideas as they come to the group, or on one’s own. Try writing down every fact, detail, or idea related to the topic.

TIP: Combine Strategies

Some preparatory writing strategies can be used together. For example, you could use an observation you make while sitting in the dining hall to come up with a topic related to your Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies course. Then, you might settle into a corner of the library with your notebook and freewrite for 15 minutes to determine your questions about that initial observation.

Focusing Your Topic

Once a general topic has been assigned to or chosen by you, you must decide on the scope of the topic. Broad topics always need to be narrowed down to more specific topics. Then, you need to determine what you will say about a subject. One way to help narrow a general subject down to a narrower topic is probing.

Probing is asking a series of questions about the topic. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Asking these types of questions will help you with the writing process. As you choose your topic, answering these questions can help you revisit your ideas and generate new ways to think about your topic. You may also discover aspects of the topic that are unfamiliar to you and that you would like to learn more about. All these idea-gathering techniques will help you plan for future work on your assignment.

For example, if you were writing about tattoos, you might ask yourself the following questions:  Who do you know that has tattoos, or who are some celebrities with memorable tattoos?  What kinds of tattoos do people usually get--what symbols and what words?  Where do people place tattoos on their bodies, or where do people go to get tattoos--tattoo parlors?  When do people get tattoos--is it after some memorable event or life stage?  Why do people get tattoos? And finally, how do people get tattoos--what is the actual process?

TIP: Developing a Good Topic

The following checklist can help you decide if your narrowed topic suits your assignment.

• Am I interested in this topic?
• Would my audience be interested?
• Do I have prior knowledge or experience with this topic? If so, would I be comfortable exploring this topic and sharing my experiences?
• Do I want to learn more about this topic?
• Is this topic specific?
• Does it fit the length and other requirements of the assignment?

3. Drafting

Once you’ve found a topic you feel good about and want to commit to, you are ready to layer in some drafting activities alongside your preparatory writing activities. As with all writing process elements, some of these drafting activities will be more or less useful depending on your specific rhetorical situation.

TIP: Keep Your Audience & Purpose Handy

You may want to identify your purpose and audience on a sticky note that you keep on the side of your computer. On that note, you may want to write notes to yourself—perhaps about what that audience might not know or what it needs to know—so that you will be sure to address those issues when you write. It may be a good idea to also jot down what you want to explain to that audience, inform them of, or persuade them of so that you don’t stray from it as you work

Additional Research

Depending on your assignment, now that you’ve chosen your topic, you may need to gather some research materials related to that topic. If you need to find materials to read, check out the guidance in the chapter on Research.

Notetaking on Readings

If you read a lot during your preparatory writing activities, you may already have notes on readings ready to go. If not, now is the time to read and re-read whatever texts are likely key sources for your essay (if integrating and responding to source material is part of the assignment). You will want to gather some key quotations from your readings, but you should also summarize and evaluate each reading. Ensure you have the gist of what each reading says about your topic and how trustworthy it is rather than only pulling a key quote without any sense of its context.

Writing In Response to Quotations

Many writers find a key quotation from their sources a helpful starting point with drafts. Copy out a quotation that seems especially important. Then, do some focused freewriting in response to it:

• How would you rephrase this quotation in your own words?
• What does this quotation help you understand about your topic?
• What questions does this quotation raise for you?
• How does this quotation connect to other texts you’ve read to prepare for writing this essay?

Writing Sprints

Writing sprints are sort of like focused freewriting, though the goal is to generate as much first-draft material as you can in a relatively short amount of time. Your writing professor may elect to have you do in-class writing sprints designed to help you draft for a specific assignment. You can also design your own writing sprints based on the assignment sheet to help you get started. Here are some examples of writing sprint questions for a thesis-driven argumentative paper:

• Why should we even bother thinking about my topic?
• The following people or organizations are affected by my topic...
• I want people to understand ... about my topic.
• I am arguing that ...
• One reason I am arguing that is...
• Someone who disagrees with me would probably say...
• But I would respond by pointing out....
• One piece of evidence that supports my point is...
• One experience that I’ve had with this topic is...
• One consequence of accepting my argument may be...

TIP: Getting Work Done

When writing, take short breaks to refresh your mind. Many folks find the “pomodoro method” useful when writing. Set a timer and write for 25 minutes without getting distracted by anything unrelated to the assignment (e.g., no checking your e-mail, watching a video, texting a friend, etc.). Then, take a 5-minute break to get up, walk around, and get on your phone for a minute. Once 5 minutes is up, go back for another 25 minutes of focused work. After you’ve completed 4 sets of 25-minute work sessions, take a more extended break of 15 or 30 minutes

Once you have written your way into your topic by doing some preparatory writing and initial drafting activities, you may be ready to draft a working thesis statement and outline your project.

3.1 Drafting a Working Thesis Statement

Once the topic has been narrowed to a workable subject and you have read and written enough, you will be ready to commit to what, exactly, you want to say about that topic—a thesis. A thesis is the main idea of an essay that communicates the essay’s purpose and argument, indicates the direction and scope of an essay, and is clearly worded. A strong thesis statement is neither a mere statement of fact nor an announcement of your intentions. Think of the thesis statement as your chance to boldly proclaim what it is that you want to convince your readers to do, think, or feel.

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the topic itself. For example, an essay’s topic might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis, however, must offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that reasonable people might dispute.
• is usually a sentence or two toward the end of the introduction.

If an assignment asks you to “take a position” or “develop a claim” about a subject, you will need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. An assignment may not explicitly state that the writer needs a thesis statement because the instructor may assume the writer will include one. When an assignment asks you to analyze, interpret, compare and contrast, demonstrate cause and effect, or take a stand on an issue, you are likely being asked to develop a thesis and support it persuasively.

How do I get a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you must collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and consider the significance of these relationships. (See the chapter on argument for more detailed information on building an argument.) Once you have done this thinking preparatory writing and drafting, you will probably have a “working thesis,” a main idea or argument you can support with evidence. We call this initial draft of your main idea a “working thesis” because it is a work in progress that is subject to change as you move through the writing process. The working thesis statement you start with will very likely differ from the thesis statement that ends up in your final draft.

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run your thesis statement by your instructor or make an appointment at Writing Resources to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your initial drafting material and working thesis, ask the following:

• Is my thesis statement a statement?  Beware of posing a question as your thesis statement. Your thesis should answer a question that the audience may have about your topic.
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no reasonable person would, or even could, disagree with, you may be merely providing a summary or sharing information rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement provable? Make sure you can establish your argument's validity through the evidence and explanation in your essay.
• Is my thesis statement specific? Thesis statements that are too vague do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is, “So what? Who cares?” then you need to clarify your position, connect it to a more significant issue, and/or signal why your argument should matter to readers.
• Does my essay support my thesis thoroughly? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out while writing your paper. Remember, continually reassess and revise your writing as necessary.


To create a working thesis statement, you may find this formula helpful:

TOPIC  +  CLAIM  =  THESIS STATEMENT

Examples:

1. GMO Foods + Are safer than many consumers realize. = Though much maligned by health food companies and consumers, GMO foods are safe to eat.
2. College Student Health and Wellbeing + College students must get more sleep. = College students perform better in classes and experience fewer health and mental health complications when they have healthy sleeping habits.
3. Arthur Miller & Death of a Salesman + Miller’s family inspired the Loman family. = Arthur Miller’s family and their experiences during the Great Depression inspired the creation of the Loman family in his play Death of a Salesman.

Exercise: Draft Thesis Statements

Using the formula, add a claim to each provided topic to create an effective working thesis statement:

1. Fake News
2. Drone Technology
3. Fast Food
4. Homework
5. Berea College

Have a partner check your thesis statements to see if they pass the tests to be a strong thesis.

Once you have a working thesis statement, it’s time to shape and develop the body of your essay from the material you’ve already written and that you continue to draft.

3.2 Outlining

Once you have generated supporting ideas for the main idea of your paper, you need to arrange those ideas in some type of order. There are a few different strategies you might use for working on organization:

1. Clustering/Idea Mapping

Clustering (also called idea mapping) is a way of visually arranging ideas. Begin clustering by writing the topic in the center of a sheet of paper. Circle the topic, and then surround it with words and phrases that identify the major points to be discussed in the paper. Continue the process until all supporting details and secondary details have been listed. Many writers like this method because the shapes show how the ideas relate or connect, and writers can find a focused topic from the connections mapped. Using clustering, you might discover interesting connections between topics you had not considered before.

Figure 0.2 "Clustering", CC-0, by Virginia Western Community College

1. A traditional outline lists the major supporting details in a tentative order and also includes secondary supporting details.

Proposal Essay Outline

1. Introduction
   1. Opening move
   2. Establish problem
   3. Thesis statement that proposes solution to problem
2. Background
   1. Timeline of history of problem
   2. Who has been affected by problem
   3. Overview of previous attempted solutions to the problem
3. Solution
   1. Share details of proposed solution
4. Support for Solution
   1. Demonstrate how solution has worked elsewhere
   2. Show what positive results of solution will be
   3. Breakdown costs associated with solution
5. Address Concerns
   1. Respond to counterarguments about why solution won’t work
   2. Show what negative results will happen if don’t do solution
6. Conclusion
   1. Make call to action for readers to start to enact this proposal
   2. Highlight what first step toward enacting solution should be

TIP: Breaking Out of the 5-Paragraph Structure

You may have been taught to adhere to a 5-paragraph structure for essays. In a 5-paragraph essay, a writer has a one-paragraph introduction, three paragraphs each featuring a main point supporting the thesis, and a final paragraph presenting a conclusion. While this structure may be helpful in certain writing situations, it is far too limited for most college-level writing and workplace writing. The outline above, for example, has six main sections, but those sections do not necessarily correspond to a paragraph. If the solution is complicated, section III. alone may take four paragraphs to explain. If you’re used to writing 5-paragraph essays, push yourself now to expand one main idea into multiple paragraphs.

3.3 Organizing

As you draft, you’ll need to consider how to organize and develop your ideas. You need to determine the development methods you’ll use and the order of your supporting ideas. Simplistically speaking, there are eight basic methods of development. (See chapter on Methods of Development). They are as follows:  narration, description, process analysis, exemplification, cause and effect analysis, comparison and contrast, definition, and classification and division. Most complex writing makes an overall argument (your thesis statement) and supports it and develops it by deploying some or even all of the different methods of development.

The Parts of an Essay:

Most essays—and just about all academic ones—have a title, an introduction, a body of supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion.  

1. A title is at the top of your paragraph or essay, but it is often the last thing you compose because until the paper is complete, you don’t really know what all it covers. A strong title will function as a part of your introduction, doing part of the work of getting your audience interested in reading.

Exercise: Titles

Once you’ve completed the first draft of your essay, challenge yourself to come up with 20 different possible titles. As you generate titles, you might consider:

• What are the critical key terms of your paper
• Different grammatical structures for a title
  • In academic writing, it’s very common to have a title that includes a colon, where the writer says something interesting and catchy before the colon and then offers more specific information about what the essay will cover after the colon (e.g., Too Much To Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age).
• Writing some long titles and some concise ones to see which you prefer

1. An effective introduction captures your readers’ attention and arouses their curiosity. As with the title, introductions are typically best left until later in your drafting process, once you have a full sense of all the key points and pieces of evidence you will present in your essay. As we mentioned in the passage on thesis statements, your thesis statement will usually appear toward the end of your introductory paragraph (in a short paper) or introductory paragraphs (in a longer project), so you can think of the sentences of your introduction leading up to the thesis statement as the material that sets the stage for your key claim. Once you’re ready to draft an introduction, experiment and have fun trying out different strategies:

• Ask a question
• Tell a personal, hypothetical, or historical story related to the topic
• Start with a particularly well-worded quotation from one of your sources
• Share a surprising fact or statistic
• Provide some background information your reader may not know about

While there aren’t any hard and fast rules when it comes to writing, some introductory strategies are so worn out that they’re rarely effective. You may want to avoid:

• Starting with a big sweeping generalization (e.g., “Music has always been important to humans”)
• Asking several questions that you don’t answer in your thesis statement
• Opening with a dictionary definition (e.g., “Dictionary.com defines music as....”)

As you narrow down your options for how to open your essay, keep your reader in mind—which approach do you think they’ll be the most likely to respond well to?

1. Your body of key points and supporting evidence should be organized, unified, and coherent. The support can be organized in chronological, spatial, or emphatic order. Most paragraphs should have a topic sentence, an opening sentence that makes a kind of mini-claim or sub-point that the rest of the paragraph develops and supports. Each topic sentence is followed by supporting information and different methods of development. In an essay, the topic sentences should all relate to your thesis statement. You should use transitional words or phrases to establish connections between paragraphs and different ideas. You should use parallel structure throughout your paper and use repetition sparingly and only when it’s effective. Be consistent in tense, number, and person throughout your paper as well. The entire body of supporting evidence should be focused on supporting your main idea without straying off-topic or including unrelated ideas.
2. Your conclusion should let the readers know that you are finished and speak to the importance of what you’ve suggested in your essay. A strong conclusion may recommend a call to action or gesture toward future directions for work on the same topic. In some rhetorical situations, conventions and genre expectations may mean that the conclusion should just be a summary of the rest of the project. The conclusion may repeat some of the ideas from the introduction, but it should not be a replica of that paragraph. It may restate your main idea. The conclusion can either be hopeful or hopeless, depending on the mood of your paper. You may leave your reader with some final important facts, a compelling example, or a final visual image. You should not go off in a new direction in your conclusion. Do not make sweeping generalizations, and don’t apologize for any of your ideas.

Using a Clear Organizational Pattern

Depending on your topic, you might find it beneficial to use one of these common organizational patterns within individual paragraphs or the entire essay.

Maintaining Internal Integrity of Paragraphs

A paragraph is more than just a group of sentences thrown together. A writer needs to make linkages between ideas, use parallelism, and maintain consistency.

Using Transitions

Transitions within paragraphs connect one sentence to another so that readers can easily follow the intended meanings of sentences and the relationships between sentences. Transitions may also be used to smooth the flow between body paragraphs. The following table shows some commonly used transition words:

4. Revising

Once you have a rough draft, take some time to step away from the essay to get a newer and better perspective. Then, begin revising. Revising means reexamining and rethinking the first draft, adding and deleting ideas extensively, rearranging any ideas, sentences, or paragraphs in the first draft, and rewriting sentences and paragraphs for more variety, better flow, and more precise word choices. Oftentimes, you may have three or four drafts before you are finally satisfied with a final draft. For revision, follow these tips:

• Take time between the first draft and the later revisions to approach it with fresh eyes.
• Revise on a hard copy rather than on the computer screen.
• Don’t delete any drafts!  Instead, periodically select “Save As” and add a number behind your document title (e.g., “Lit Essay 1” to “Lit Essay 2”) so that you can go back and find your previous work in case you delete something in one draft that you discover you want to include two or three drafts down the line.
• Read the draft aloud. Better yet, have someone else read it aloud to you. You can even have Word read your essay to you by selecting “Read Aloud” from under the “Review” tab.
• Take advantage of opportunities to get feedback; however, don’t get overwhelmed by feedback. Give yourself a chance to address feedback from one source before gathering more from another, and realize that not all feedback is created equal. It’s okay to reject some input if it doesn’t help you make your writing better.
• Don’t allow ego to get in the way of a successful paper. Because writing can be tough and takes a lot of concentration, it can be hard to cut a section that isn’t working; getting rid of stuff, however, is just as important as adding stuff when it comes to making your essay excellent.
• Revise in stages--
  • First, revise for overall meaning and structure. Does the essay develop a central point clearly and logically, and are the purpose, tone, and point-of-view suited for the audience of the essay?  
  • Second, revise for paragraph development. Check that the paragraphs are logically ordered, unified, and specific.
  • Third, revise sentence structure. Make your sentences consistent with your overall tone, varied in type and length, emphatic and economical.
  • Finally, revise for word choices. Aim for an appropriate level of diction, word choices that do not overstate or understate, specific rather than general terms, strong verbs, only necessary modifiers, original and nonsexist language.
• When you get your essays back from a teacher, read through the essay and heed your instructor’s comments. They can help improve your future essays. If you don’t understand your grade or the instructor’s comments, schedule a conference to discuss them. As you revise your future essays, revisit the mistakes you’ve made before and avoid repeating them.

5. Editing

• To edit, search for grammatical errors, check punctuation, check spelling, and look over sentence style and word choices one last time. You may want to use the built-in spelling and grammar checkers in Word or in Grammarly. Be careful, though, to not accept every automatically generated correction your computer gives you. Use your judgment to decide if the suggestions actually make your writing clearer or not. Moreover, don’t let your essay become the computer’s at this stage. Be sure that your writing retains your voice and spirit rather than becoming too generic.
• To proofread, look for surface errors, such as typos, incorrect spacing, or formatting problems.
• To format, be sure to follow the formatting style your instructor requires, whether it is Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), etc.
• Overall, look carefully for any error, large or small, that may weaken the essay’s message or undermine its credibility.

Publishing/Submitting

As the deadline for an assignment gets closer, make sure you return to the assignment sheet one final time and review it closely to ensure that your essay meets all the requirements. Make sure, too, to double-check the deadline, as many college students have been disappointed to discover that what they thought was due in class at 10 a.m. was due at 11:59 p.m. the night before.

Key Takeaways

• All writers rely on steps and strategies to begin their writing process.
• The steps in the writing process are preparatory writing, drafting, revising, editing/proofreading, and publishing/submitting.
• Preparatory writing transfers ideas from abstract thoughts into words, phrases, and sentences on paper.
• A good topic interests the writer, appeals to the audience, and fits the purpose of the assignment. Writers often choose a general topic and then narrow the focus to a more specific one.
• A strong thesis statement is key to having a focused and unified essay.
• Rough drafts are opportunities to get ideas down onto paper and get a first look at how your ideas will work together.
• Revising improves your writing as far as supporting ideas, organization, sentence flow and word choices.
• Editing identifies and corrects grammar, mechanics, spelling, and formatting errors.
• Regardless of the type of assignment you may be given in college or at work, it benefits you to follow a writing process, to put in the work necessary to understand your subject and audience and to communicate your ideas confidently and coherently.

CC Licensed Content, Shared Previously

English Composition I , CC-BY 4.0, by Lumen Learning.

“Rhetoric and Composition/The Stages of the Writing Process”, Wikibooks. CC-BY-SA 3.0, 6 September 2016. Retrieved from

Successful Writing v. 1.0. Scott McLean. Publisher information removed. License: CC-BY-NC-SA.

Image Credits

Figure 0.1 “The Writing Process”, CC-0, by Virginia Western Community College.

Figure 0.2 "Clustering", CC-0, by Virginia Western Community College