AN OVERVIEW OF THE WRITING PROCESS
BY: DR. SABRI BEBAWI
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An Overview of the Writing Process
We write in several stages. Only very few writers, if any, can sit down and write a well-written essay at first trial. Everything that I published, I had to write and rewrite four, five, and six times. For most of us, we have to think, write, rethink, and rewrite several times before we can produce an effective paper.
Two main frames of thinking dominate your writing process. The first involves the creation and generation of ideas to write about. The second involves the critical evaluation of these creative ideas that you have generated.
The first part of this course will help you understand and apply the creative writing process. It will involve activities such as brainstorming and clustering to generate ideas, as well as getting your words on paper in the act of writing. In this first frame of thinking, you will want to refrain from criticizing or judging your ideas and initial words. Instead, concentrate on freeing yourself up to be creative.
The second part of the course will address the critical evaluation of your writing. This involves re-evaluating the ideas you have written down so far, looking at ways they may need to be more focused, making sure you have chosen the correct words, and polishing your grammar and punctuation. In this frame of thinking, you will be critiquing, revising, and editing your work.
Before I go into discussing the steps you will have to take in your writing process, I want to point out that this course focuses on the five-paragraph essay format. This format is the most foundational and versatile form of writing. Any standardized writing test requires that you write an essay mostly of 500 words. To accomplish this, you will need to develop an introductory paragraph, a body of at least three paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph.
Although you do not always have to write five-paragraph essays, you will find that the format and the techniques are applicable to other writings. It is not any different in writing e-mails, memos, letters, or reports.
Here is an example. You are in school, and your teacher asks you to write an essay on the following essay topic:
An eventful day is one in which many unusual things take place. Think of a day in your life that was eventful and full of surprises.
This would be a narrative essay, in which you recount important events that have a somewhat significant impact on your life. This type of essay requires the development of an experience from beginning to end. The experience may be in the past or going on in the present.
Simply, you will need to write a well-organized and attractive introductory paragraph in which you will use two or three sentences to introduce your topic. Then you will follow these two or three sentences with a thesis statement or main idea. In the body of the essay, you will develop and support the three major points of your main idea by constructing three paragraphs. Then you will write a conclusion that wraps up all the information in the essay.
That is a picture of the end result. What we need to learn now, though, is how to start.
Inherently, the process of writing takes five steps.
| The Writing Process |
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Let us look at each process in some detail.
Prewriting
This is the first step in the writing process. Here you try to create ideas for discussion and writing; then you attempt to focus and narrow the ideas you have for the points you want to make. You achieve this through brainstorming, clustering, and any other means to focus your thoughts around your purpose for writing.
First, you will need to brainstorm. Using the essay topic above, think of a day that you will always remember, and list the reasons why you will always remember that day. Write a list of as many events that took place on that day as you can.
Second, you will need to cluster and narrow down these events to the most intriguing and interesting three events. Write down the events and the reasons why they are interesting.
Outlining
An outline is a logical, general description of what you will write. It is a summary and a visual design of your writing. Your outline will reflect your logical thinking and your clear classification.
Why do you need to write an outline?
It will help you organize your ideas and present your material in a connected form. Your outline will guide you through the actual writing of the essay. It will look something like this:
Sample outline for writing an essay
Now you are on your way to writing your essay.
Writing
The actual writing of the first draft involves the formation of the idea or ideas developed in the previous stage. Here you need to pay more attention to the purpose and focus of your work.
Following your outline, you would now start writing your first draft. You should have a strong thesis statement in your introductory paragraph. This sentence will guide you, along with the outline, through the writing of your paper. Your thesis statement will state the main point of your essay at the start. A thesis statement is a sentence or two that shows the purpose of the essay, indicates the basic components of the essay, and offers your unique perspective on the topic about which you are writing.
Once you have written your introductory paragraph, you will now develop your idea in the body of the essay, giving as many details as you can to make your essay interesting.
Revising
In this stage, you will give a final form to your writing. You will make sure the voice you give your writing is consistent. It could be serious, intellectual, or funny. Also, when you revise the paragraphs you wrote and your conclusion, you need to polish what you want your readers to know. You will want to pay particular attention to whether you remained focused on your topic or whether you strayed from it. If you strayed, you will omit irrelevant material.
You will perhaps need to add some new details as well. You will need to be sure that all the supporting details you give are important and relevant to the main ideas.
Editing
In the editing stage, you need to check for the effectiveness of the transitions between ideas and between paragraphs. Transitions can be words or phrases, and they are important because they unite your essay and make it flow easily, showing the link between a thought and the one that follows it.
If, for example, you want to signal an addition, you would use words such as:
- in addition
- furthermore
- moreover
- also
- equally important
If you want to show a contrast, you would use words such as:
- however
- on the other hand
- although
- but
If you want to conclude, you would use words like:
- therefore
- thus
- in conclusion
You usually put a transition at the beginning of the paragraph to connect it to the previous one. One very useful way to create a transition sentence is to identify a key word or phrase in the previous sentence and repeat it in your transition sentence. Do not overuse this technique, however, or you will have too much repetition.
In this editing stage, you will also need to check for the development of any generalized ideas and the supporting information, such as details, illustrations, and examples. You must check your sentence structure, re-examine the clarity of the words you chose, and eliminate fragments, run-on sentences, comma splices, and clichés. In addition, check for such grammatical errors as inconsistent verb tenses, subject-verb disagreement, and plural and singular noun shifts.
Verb tenses are especially important. Whether you write about events that happen on a regular basis or events that took place in the past, your verb tenses must be consistent.
Now your paper is ready for your readers to read.