The Writing Process
"I write entirely to find out what I鈥檓 thinking, what I鈥檓 looking at, what I see and what it means鈥� - Joan Didion
Where to begin?
Starting can be the hardest part. Remember that no one sits down and produces a perfect
draft the first time. No one!
This guide will show you the stages that strong writers use to get to a polished final
draft. Plan ahead to figure out how to incorporate some (or all!) of these stages
into your calendar in advance of your paper deadline:
陇 Getting started
陇 Brainstorming
陇 Creating an argument
陇 Outlining
陇 Drafting
陇 Revision
What do you need to get started?
Read over your assignment carefully. Think about the kind of assignment you have:
a lab report will be quite different from a literary analysis.
If you have questions on your assignment, reach out to your professor. You can always
ask follow-up questions on the professor鈥檚 expectations via email or in their office
hours. You may also ask to see a professor鈥檚 rubric if they have one, or discuss their
evaluation criteria.
If you aren鈥檛 sure how to get started, take the assignment to the Writing Center. Writing center tutors are happy to help at even the earliest stages!
Where do your ideas come from?
If your assignment involves research, check out the .
Begin keeping track of whatever sources you consult: it鈥檚 easier to do it at the beginning
than at the end, when you have the information written out.
Once you have some sources or ideas, you can try brainstorming. Brainstorming may
not work for all assignments, but it is a useful tool for many鈥攆reewriting can help
you avoid procrastination and perfectionism.
Suggestions for freewriting:
陇 Try writing by hand in a notebook.
陇 Try typing up all of your ideas, no editing.
陇 Try a list format or a 鈥渃luster鈥� format, maybe on an unlined sheet of paper.
陇 Try printing out your notes and circling key ideas, or drawing lines of connection
between them.
陇 Try using a large piece of paper or a whiteboard to map out ideas and how they
connect (or don鈥檛).
陇 Try recording a voice memo to yourself as you鈥檙e taking a walk: what are the key
ideas you want to include?
陇 Book a Writing Center appointment to talk through your ideas with another person (or ask a friend)
陇 Organizing your notes gives you a chance to review what you have and to think
about logical relationships between ideas, authors, report-type facts, etc.鈥�
I ask students to use smaller pieces of paper (eg: index cards) that they can move around and even share with others for them to move around as a means of brainstorming鈥� - Professor Sandamini Ranwalage
"I think writing expresses an idea, so I personally need at least one idea before I start writing. To find that idea, I do two things mostly. First, I take walks to give myself time to think about what I have read or what I think right now. Next, I make special sheets of paper that are NOT my essay, and I fill them up with "things I can say right now"--claims I can report from authors, interesting ideas from my readings, and any statement that I can say now but wouldn't have said before my investigation began.鈥� - Thad Niles, English
What do you believe? Writing a thesis statement
陇 Thesis statements may very well change as you work on your paper, but it鈥檚 helpful
to have a sense of your main argument before you start writing. Look at the assignment
again to determine what kind of focus your paper should have.
陇 A thesis statement tells us where we鈥檙e going. It gives us something specific
to accomplish. It also tells our readers what to expect. In short, a thesis makes
both writing and reading easier. Once you have a main idea, try stating that idea
as specifically as possible in a sentence or two. This is your thesis.
陇 Thesis statements are like the DNA of your paper: they must replicate in each
paragraph. Consider the length of your paper: does the thesis seem provable in that
number of pages? Too long and you might not get to all of it; too short and you won鈥檛
have enough to say.
鈯� A thesis statement should be something someone else can disagree with. Picture a person you know who might disagree with you (or make someone up).
How would you frame your thesis to them?
鈥淚 have a mantra that I tire my students with when it comes to their theses: Clarity, concision, and specificity鈥� - Professor Sandamini Ranwalage
How do you structure a paper? Writing an outline
Outlines aren't for everyone: some writers make maps of their ideas: they start with
one idea, draw arrows to the next, and so on until they come to the end of the "road"
of thought. Other writers begin by explaining their writing project to someone in
a letter or email. This informal writing serves to loosen them up and get ideas on
paper because they imagine a friendly and receptive reader.
Outlines help you get a sense of all the ideas you have, what order they might go
in, and how they connect to your thesis.
Outlines like this not only help us to see the distinctions among our various ideas,
but they also allow us to visualize the relationship of one idea to another. Look
back over your outline and try to discover the natural groupings. Which ideas cluster
together? Within each cluster, which idea is the most important? By answering such
questions we discover the hierarchy of our ideas, and this will help us to develop
the most logical order and movement of our argument.
Try writing each main idea on a post it note and placing them in order. It can be
helpful to talk through what you鈥檙e doing to a friend or classmate. Using visualization
and explanation might help you find holes in your argument or missing components of
your narrative.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you think about organizing:
陇 What does a reader need to know first?
陇 Does a reader need to follow a process chronologically?
陇 Do we need to give a reader background information, including key words or concepts?
陇 When does the writer need a reminder of your central claims?
One final note: once you've constructed an outline, don't feel that you'll sink if you decide to change it. It's an outline, not a life preserver. If you stumble upon a better way of organizing your ideas as you write, be flexible and change your outline.
What goes into a draft?
A draft is not the same thing as a free write. It's your first real try at producing a finished paper. It should have an introduction, developed paragraphs, and a conclusion. In some classes, professors will look at drafts, you can share them with classmates for a peer review, or you'll have a chance to submit them for a class workshop.
The Introduction
You don鈥檛 have to start by writing the introduction (sometimes it鈥檚 easier to write when the body paragraphs
are done) but an introduction should come first. Many writers like to imagine the
introduction as a kind of inverted triangle. Try beginning rather broadly and gradually
work your way to a more specific claim. This will be your thesis.
Any introduction needs to:
陇 Give your reader a clear idea of what question you are answering in your paper
invite your reader to join you in considering that question (that is, the introduction
should appeal to the reader's interest).
陇 Give a sense of why the question is important - to you and others.
陇 Give the reader an idea of what kinds of sources you are considering for evidence
(background information on the sources you used).
The introduction, then, presents a question, the context for asking that question, and your motivation for answering it.
The Body
Writing the body of your paper means developing the ideas you may have had in your outline.
Some advice:
陇 Don't assume that your reader is inside your head. You have to explain your ideas
in detail. Develop them fully so that your reader understands their relation to your
thesis.
陇 Make sure that you provide evidence for your assertions. Remember, it's your job
to support your thesis.
陇 Keep asking yourself these basic questions: "What did I tell my reader I was going
to do? Am I doing it?"
陇 Each paragraph should have one main idea. More than one and it should probably
be more than one paragraph!
陇 Just as a paper needs a thesis, a paragraph needs a topic sentence. Try summarizing
each of your main supporting ideas in one sentence. These one-sentence summaries can
serve as your topic sentences.
The Conclusion
Finally, you need to draft a conclusion. Many of us were probably taught that our conclusion is where we restate our argument. But think of this from the reader's point of view. If we're reading information that we've already read, what is our incentive to stay interested? Aren't we likely to get bored and tune out? Keep this possibility in mind as you write your conclusion, and work on coming up with a new twist - something that offers an additional perspective on your topic, but not something that needs to be developed in full.
Any conclusion may:
陇 Help your reader consider your ideas in a larger context (that is, show the reader
that your question is really part of a larger question)
陇 Inspire your reader to think about your question in a new way
陇 Justify your writing the essay by making a case for the significance of the question
陇 Help your reader take the next step in thinking about the question.
Your conclusion should answer the question, "so what?" Why is your argument significant? Why should anyone care about what you've just said in your paper?
How can I make sure my writing is clear? Revision
As you get to know your writing strengths and weaknesses, you will learn what to look
for as you revise. Maybe you鈥檙e someone whose rough drafts are full of run-on sentences.
That鈥檚 ok! Just make sure you leave time to revise, finding those long sentences and
shortening/splitting them up.
"Revision" means "to see again." As you already know, however, this new vision is
often hard to achieve because we're so much inside of our own writing and thinking
process. Since we know what we meant to say, it often looks, to our eyes, as if we
said it. We need to find a way to develop new eyes.
Practice a revision hierarchy: begin with content and argument rather than with formatting
or sentence-level issues. What if you end up changing some part of your thesis? Then
you鈥檇 have plenty of beautiful sentences that don鈥檛 fit in your paper anymore. Revise
big picture stuff first.
Some revision techniques, from big-picture revision to small:
陇 New eyes can come from simply letting the essay rest. Leaving a draft alone for
a week, day, or even hour can result in you seeing your own work more clearly.
陇 New eyes can simply be someone else鈥檚: book a Writing Center appointment, ask
a classmate to take a look at your draft, or stop by office hours with a few questions
on your draft.
陇 Print your draft and cut out each paragraph. Play around with their order and
see what you find about your structure.
陇 Highlight your paper for structure: one color for thesis & topic sentences, another
for transitional phrases, a third color for evidence and a fourth for analysis. Note
the balance between colors on your paper.
陇 Have a reader go through and underline any section of your essay that doesn鈥檛
make complete sense to them. Then discuss what they found.
陇 New ears: read your paper aloud, to yourself, a friend, or to a recording device.
Play it back and see what you notice.
Professional writers even hire professional editors. Revision is for the strong, not
the weak!
鈥淚 make little TED Talk speeches to myself--just a few sentences, each sentence trying
to pin down a longer paragraph or passage. I expect to explain my essay in about 60-90
seconds if I really understand the topic. As I do this for a few days, I can imagine different versions
of my argument by reordering ideas, dropping or adding ideas, or changing how I articulate
key claims. I can see the "whole" much easier by zooming out in this way, and it's
a key sign that my thinking is clear and orderly.鈥� - Thad Niles
Click here to see more about Feedback and Revision.
Final steps: Proofreading
Take time to read your paper again before submitting it. Reading aloud can help with
this stage too.
An even more potent tool is to have someone else proof your paper before turning it in--this can be a friend, classmate, or Writing
Center tutor. A classmate who knows your topic well can check the accuracy of your
writing, while someone unfamiliar with your topic can identify moments that lack clarity.
Click here to see more about Editing Your Writing.