The Writing Process
1. Prewriting
2. Drafting
A. annotated bibliography
3. Revising
B. sample rough outline
Dispel the myth that “writing is genius.”
Developing writers often think that good writers are simply born with a certain talent that the
rest of us lack, but that’s just not true. Good writers are made, not born, by using tools that make
writing easier for anyone. One of those tools is using a process to develop rough and underdeveloped ideas into more polished, sophisticated pieces. In fact, most good writers begin writing
an essay with an underdeveloped, poorly organized, and overall not-so-good rough draft. And
there’s nothing wrong with that. Embrace it for how bad it is -- just be willing to put in some effort
to make it better.
Expect your first draft to be bad -- that’s ok.
Unfortunately, it’s often that underdeveloped and poorly organized first draft that the developing
writer turns in for a grade istead of working on it and making it better through a few simple revisions.
In fact, a good writer will employ a writing process to generate ideas before even writing the
rough draft. A good writer will then take that rough draft and revise until it’s right. That is what
separates good writers from bad writers: the writing process. It is only through prewriting, drafting,
and then revising that a rough essay is finely tuned, polished, and finished.
The Process:
The writing process is actually quite easy to understand, and it really makes building an essay
much easier than just sitting down and staring at a blank screen.
In fact, the process doesn’t even really start with writing the essay at all.
Basically, the writing process is broken up into three main sections with a few subsets. The three
main sections are:
1. prewriting
2. drafting
3. revising
This is what you can expect:
You’ll first figure out what claim you want to make (your thesis) after doing some research
on a given topic or subject. You should then try to think of a few supporting reasons (topic
sentences) for why you feel the way you do about your thesis. While you do this, you
should be making notes of important sources you come across and of ideas you come up
with.
Then you’ll turn those supporting reasons into topic sentences for your essay’s body paragraphs, and you’ll start organizing your topic sentences in a logical manner. You’ll then
start to weave in the research and quotes you’ve found as support for the claims you’re
making. Next, you’ll add some of your own commentary through personal insight and
analysis. to fully develop your body paragraphs and ideas.
Next you’re ready to write the rough draft of essay.
Finally you’ll revise the rough draft and make sure there’s enough discussion and development of your ideas, and you’ll tighten up the grammar, spelling, and sentence structure in
order to make your essay read more coherently.
And there you have it: prewriting, drafting, and revising.
Prewriting:
Prewriting is simply when you gather and organize information. There are many techniques in
prewriting. Some are:
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reading and annotating texts
asking questions
listing/brainstorming
freewriting
clustering
annotated bibliography
outlining
Your main goal in this stage is to gather a wealth of information to use in your essay. You may not
use all the info, but the more you have, the better off you are.
Some people use all of these techniques and some use only a few. Again, different people have
different ways of learning. Try all of them out and see which ones work for yourself. Your main
goal in this stage is to provide yourself with a wealth of information to have for your essay. You
may not use all the info, only some of it. The more you have, however, the better off you are. It’s
often easier to remove info than to add info to an essay in progress.
annotated bibliography:
Before moving on to the the final stage of prewriting and starting to write your outline, there’s still
one important step left. Remember that academic essays often need support and research that
will be documented in a works cited page. By documenting each source as you find it, you’re saving yourself a ton of time when it comes time to write the works cited page.
In an annotated bibliography, you’re documenting each source as you do research. Make sure
to follow MLA style for each entry, and, when finished documenting it, simply write a few words
to remind yourself what the article was about, why you wanted to use it, where the quote is and
how it pertains to your thesis, etc.
What’s the difference between an annotated bibliography and a works cited page?
Annotated Bibliography: making a list of your sources as you do the research and making notes
about the content of each source for future reference. You might or might not use any of these in
your essay -- these are just the ones you’re considering so far.
Works Cited: a separate page at the end of your essay that lists only the sources you actually
used in the essay itself -- they can be direct quotes, rephrased summaries, data, or even statistics.
Any information you borrow from somewhere else, anything that isn’t common knowledge, needs
to be cited according to MLA style. If you’ve already done this in an annotated bibliography, then
all you have to do here is cut and paste.
Make sure you don’t title your Works Cited page as an Annotated Bibliography. They are
two different things.
note: see pg. 450 RFW for a helpful list of information to keep track of (authors, titles, dates, etc.).
Page 458 has a list of how to format each entry.
Outlining:
If you dedicate enough time to prewriting, the outlining stage is made easier. In this stage you will
build the skeleton of your essay.
• Many find it best to have a rough, working thesis statement written out before actually beginning the outlining process. Others like to have their information organized first, then tailor a
thesis statement to that draft. Again, different minds work in different ways -- use what works
best for you.
• You’ll figure out what main points you want to use in your essay from the pool of information
gathered in prewriting. You’ll then figure out when to incorporate these main points (supporting paragraphs) in a logical manner. This is often the best time to begin writing the topic sentences you’ll use to open these paragraphs and support your thesis.
Finally, list the method of conclusion you might use and go back and review the entire thing to
get a feel for how the essay might flow.
Sample Rough Outline:
Working Outline:
method of intro: startling quote: “By the end of high school, the average teenager will have spent
22,000 hours in front of the set, versus only 11,000 in the classroom (Wilson 22).
working thesis statement:Television has become a force out of control, inundating our lives with
nothing but trite material disguised as “real” tv.
I. Reality T.V. is anything but real. (topic sentence)
• the real world? right, free room and board in a great house, nothing but beautiful young people reacting to production cues and desires to be famous at almost any cost. spare me. (supporting detail)
• survivor? outweasel, outsneak, outwhine, eat a bug. what’s so real about that? (be more specific).(supporting detail)
• big brother...? (supporting detail)
II. An hour show is now just 44 minutes due to 16 minutes of advertising time, wasted time that
should be spent on giving us more entertainment. (topic sentence)
• stats from proquest database (http://...) (supporting detail)
• uncle joe is a cameraman for Fox, interview him (supporting detail)
• even the superbowl is known by more people for the commercials than for the game (supporting detail)
III. Advertising even permeates shows themselves through product placements, making us feel
like our lives aren’t “real” unless we spend money on garbage we don’t need. (topic sentence)
• I’ve seen so many plugs for Aquafina, Coke, Pepsi, whatever :”The Sopranos,” “LAPD Blue,” Sex
and the City.” (supporting detail)
• even car companies have to pay to have their cars used in shows these days (double check
facts) (supporting detail)
IV. Most entertainment shows play into this reality gimmick, making many Americans feel as if
they have to look like everyone on TV just to fit in. (topic sentence)
• E! has nothing but fashion shows and celebrity reports (supporting detail)
• most mainstream news now has some sort of entertainment/fashion segment. that’s not news
to me. (develop with more examples and specific details) (supporting detail)
method of conclusion: offer a solution: As long as we are aware of these ads, it isn’t such a big
deal. If we take these ads for what they are, they’re harmless. It is when we buy into the image of
the ad when the problems begin. (elaborate)
As you can start to see from this point on, the information you’ve gathered is already beginning to
take the preliminary form of an essay. This is the skeleton of the essay and becomes a road map
for you to follow as you begin drafting. Sitting down to write an essay with an outline by your side
make writing the essay itself a whole lot easier.
note: Be aware that this is a work in progress from here on out.
Don’t consider any part of this outline to be set in stone. Be flexible. Expect your thesis, topic
sentences, even structure to change throughout the drafting process. It is very common for
the final version of the essay to be different from the outline.
Drafting:
After having done the outline, if you’ve done a thorough job, writing the rough draft is almost as
easy as following a road map. Simply follow the cues you gave yourself in the outline. Begin with
the intro, move on to the body, and finish with the conclusion.
Periodically check back with your outline to make sure you’re staying on task, that you’re not going off on some tangent. After all, that is why you wrote the outline in the first place, to map out
what you want to write about and when.
Revising:
Revising is often what separates good writer from bad writers. Revising is broken up into two main
parts, global revisions and editing. When making global revisions, it is important to focus on the
essay as a whole. Spend a majority of your revising time focusing on the unity, coherence, and
development of your essay:
Is the essay Unified? Do all the points included support your claim, or is there any irrelevant
information?
Is the essay Coherent? Does the essay move from one point to another with ease, or are the
transitions sloppy, making it difficult to follow?
Is the essay Developed? Is there enough discussion to fully develop and support your
claim? Are there enough supporting details and outside support? Is there enough of your
own personal insight?
The above ideas focus on global revisions, revisions focused on the essay as a whole, not as just a
bunch of words thrown together. Does it make sense? Is it clear? Is it supported effectively?
When editing, it is the fine points of the essay that are being corrected and fine-tuned -- this is
when you dot your i’s and cross your t’s:
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the grammar
the spelling
the format
heading and spacing
the works cited page
Making global revisions is the most important part of this process; do not ignore it.
• Think about it this way: An essay with perfect grammar and spelling, but with poor content, is
NEVER a passing essay. At the college level, it is the content of the essay that is being favored,
not the punctuation. However, an essay with solid content and acceptable but sloppy grammar CAN BE a passing essay.
• Focus on the content of your work, but don’t ignore the grammar. Spend a majority of your
revision time focusing on the unity, coherence, and support of your essay.