When teaching the writing process directly to students, or just watching over your independent child as they complete writing homework for another teacher, I highly recommend making sure all of these steps have been taken, to create one’s own best work. Yes, it is true, some people tend to skip over some of these steps, especially the earlier ones on my list, but when you think about it, even those beginning stages probably occur at least in the writer’s mind, even if not on paper. For anyone who struggles with written organization and written expression, however, ALL of the following steps are a MUST:
1) Pre-writing Brainstorm:
For any given topic, write any and all words and phrases that come to mind for that given topic. Order doesn’t matter at this point. You won’t be required to include all brainstormed ideas into your writing piece either. That’s the beauty of brainstorming; lose your inhibitions for a few moments!
2) Pre-writing Outline:
This can be done formally or informally. Either way, start by picking out the brainstormed ideas that you intend to use in the writing piece. If you want to create an informal outline, you can simply categorize each note you want to use and group together, such as some ideas fall under the “A” group and other ideas fall into the “B” group, etc. If it is a simple one-paragraph writing task, you may want to just number the ideas in the order you want to mention them. If you have a long and complicated collection of ideas, you may choose to draw out a formal outline. Here are some examples using various note organizing strategies:
3) Rough Draft(s):
Take the ideas, and put them into proper sentence and paragraph structures. You may write one rough draft, and then decide you want to re-write it again and say things in a different way or with a different style. Once you get rolling, you may even decide to add ideas that didn’t come up in your initial outline. That is okay, as long as you also remember to keep a logical order and flow to your paper. There is really no limit as to how many drafts you create, unless a teacher requires a specific number of them.
4) Revise:
This should include things like checking for complete sentences and re-wording some thoughts. This is also the time to embellish your piece with more interesting word choices. A thesaurus is a great tool! In a longer piece especially, you may also need to check for consistency within the style of writing you chose, and that your organization of thoughts is still tight.
5) Edit/Proofread:
This should be reserved for when nearing the end of the process, once all the wording is the way you like it. Now is the time to check for all spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
6) Final Copy/Publish:
You may have written one or ten rough drafts. Re-write it one more time, to create the final, clean, “ready to show the world” copy.
Downloadables:
Head over to my store for some low-cost helpful writing tools, such as a downloadable guide of the writing process steps, and writing structure guides that include illustrations, explanations of terms, and editing checklists.
