Strategies for Writing
Many inexperienced writers imagine that “good” writers compose their texts all at once, from beginning to end, and need only a small amount of attention to polish the grammar and punctuation before arriving at a final draft. In reality, however, the writing process (steps for creating a finished composition) is typically recursive. That is, it repeats steps multiple times, not necessarily in the same order, and the process is more messy than linear or systematic. You can think of the writing process in terms of these broad categories:
- Prewriting. You will end up with a stronger composition if you do some work before you begin writing. Before putting complete sentences on a page, take some time to think about the rhetorical situation for your writing, gather your thoughts, and consider how you might arrange your ideas. Use your brainstorming skills or try some freewriting and then develop an outline once you have a good idea of what you want to do.
- Drafting. In the past, you may have dedicated most of your writing time to drafting or putting words into a document. When you have strong prewriting and revision habits, however, drafting is often a smaller portion of the writing process. Much of the work for writing is done in the prewriting and revision stages. That means you don’t have to censor or limit yourself while drafting. In fact, it’s better to overwrite while drafting than not include enough information.
- Revision. After you have a draft, carefully consider how to make it more effective in reaching the audience and fulfilling its purpose. You can make changes that affect the piece as a whole, such as cutting out paragraphs for a stronger organization or even adding content. Such changes are often called global revisions. The revision stage is what makes overwriting more of a positive than not. When you have material to work from during this stage, it’s easier to shape how you want to communicate your thoughts. Not to worry if you wrote a bit short during the drafting stage. Part of the revision is finding out what may be needed. If you find holes in your communication, go back to the drafting stage to try to fill them.
- Editing. After making global changes to your piece, you must also make changes that affect the meaning of a sentence or a word; these changes can be called local revisions. In this stage, the focus is on strengthening grammar and mechanics and improving style and design. As you work through the editing stage, it’s more efficient and effective to look for one or two issues at a time instead of trying to fix every little punctuation mark or grammatical mistake.
For many, the editing stage is the most comfortable, but this really isn’t the most important part of putting together your project. While poor grammar and misplaced punctuation can be irritating, they don’t typically detract from the message. Don’t skip this step, but don’t confuse it with revision.
- Proof Reading. You definitely want to proofread your draft before submitting it for peer review or to your instructor for grading. While deadlines don’t always allow for this, if possible, you should wait at least 24 hours before proofreading what you’ve created. By doing this, you’ve given your eyes and brain a rest so you won’t be as cued in on issues you were having during writing. Even better, wait a day and then have someone else read it to you. As the author, reading your own work may not be as helpful as having someone else read it to you. This is because, as the author, we tend to skim over issues or fill in holes we really missed. If no one is available, the next best thing is to read it out loud yourself. This helps some of the skimming, hole-filling, and avoiding we do when we read our work silently.
- Peer Review. While not part of the writing process, peer review is one of the most valuable resources you can have to help your work. Almost all strong writers rely on feedback from others, whether peers, instructors, or editors. Your instructor may guide you in some peer review exercises to complete with your classmates, or you might choose to consult with your university’s writing center. When others give you clear, honest feedback on your draft, you can use that information to strengthen your piece.
Drafting: Writing from Personal Experience and Observation
Now that you have planned out your assignment, you are ready to begin drafting. If you have been thoughtful in preparing to write, drafting usually proceeds quickly and smoothly. Use your notes to guide you in composing the first draft. As you write, create a rich picture for your reader by using concrete, sensory details and specific rather than general nouns, as shown in the table below. Be sure to use sensory language when it is appropriate, such as in narratives and memoirs, but remember to be more direct in genres that call for conciseness, such as reports and proposals.
Person |
Place |
Thing |
Idea |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
General |
girl | park | game | competition |
Less Specific |
schoolmate | bench | chess | tournament |
More Specific |
Sasha | gaming area | board | semifinal match |
Sensory |
tall, dark-haired Sasha | quiet, tree-shaded gaming area | glossy black and white board | popcorn-scented semifinal match |
Revising: Adding and Deleting Information
After you have completed the peer review exercise and received the related constructive feedback, you are ready to revise your assignment in preparation for submission to your instructor for grading and a possible publication venue. The peer review exercise above can help guide you and your partner or group members through a thorough assessment of your drafts. If you are not able to participate in peer review, make an appointment with your campus writing center to receive similar feedback. After getting responses from peers or the writing center, the next step is to take that feedback and make changes to your draft.
Look at the criteria in the first row of the peer review chart above and then at the evidence for those criteria that your partner listed.
Does your reviewer’s understanding of the parts of your essay match your own? Where are the disconnects between what you intended for a section of your writing and what your reviewer has read and understood?
These points of disconnect are good places to begin your revisions. Your peer reviewers represent your audience, so if they experience some misunderstandings in the reading of your narrative, you will want to make changes to clarify your writing.
Imagine you have written a literacy narrative in which you discuss the difficulty of learning to read music. Imagine the opening paragraph contains the following sentence: “I have always had a hard time reading music.” Your peer reviewer might list in column 2, for the first criterion on engaging identity, that you read music, and that is all. Such a brief and limited assessment might lead your partner to suggest in column 3 that you strengthen your identity by answering the following questions:
- When and why did you begin trying to learn to read music?
- Do you come from a musical background?
- Did you have a music reading teacher, or are you self-taught?
- What are your specific challenges in reading music?
During a discussion after the written peer review, you might share the details of your learning to play the piano: that you were five years old and that your grandmother was your teacher. Your revision for this opening paragraph might then include a sentence such as the following: “I have struggled to read music since I began playing piano at five years old, when my grandmother, our church musician, gave me my first lesson.” This process demonstrates the way in which the peer review should lead to substantive change and revision in your writing.
You will want to read and discuss the details of the evidence and suggestions for each of the above criteria with your peer review partner. On the basis of your partner’s assessment—and your own judgment, of course—make any necessary revisions before submitting your assignment for grading. The more time you take to go through this process, the more developed and comprehensive your writing will be. Some people may feel anxious about having others read their work, but the scenario provided above demonstrates the valuable ways in which a preliminary reading audience can help improve our writing.
LICENSE AND ATTRIBUTION
“Strategies for Writing” by Rachael Reynolds is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License and adapted work from the source below:
- Michelle Bachelor Robinson and Maria Jerskey’s “3.5 Writing Process: Tracing the Beginning of Literacy” of Writing Guide with Handbook, 2021, used according to CC by 4.0.