You’ve most likely heard the expression “good writing is rewriting”. It means that good writing necessitates the following;
- Generation of ideas,
- Review and organization
- Incorporation into a cohesive written work,
- Revisiting your work, editing and reworking it to make your words stronger.
The writing process consists of these steps.
Whether you’re making a blog post, a screenplay, a research paper, or a book review, you’ll go through the writing process to transform your basic thoughts into a polished, publishable finished article. Continue reading to understand more about the six steps of the writing process in detail.
Brainstorming
The writing process begins even before you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. The first step is to brainstorm.
Depending on the assignment, you may be given a topic or be required to generate one. Do an internet search for the topic you’ll be covering to obtain a better understanding of it and all the many routes your writing can take.
When you brainstorm, you think hard about the topic you’ll be covering in your writing and let your mind to follow any and all leads it comes across. If you’ve been assigned to write about a broad topic, this is where you limit it down to a single thesis statement.
While brainstorming, jot down any ideas that come to mind, even if they are only distantly related to your theme. The purpose here is to open a path for your work, not to generate a coherent piece of writing.
Brainstorming is about discovering the most effective approach to convey your material to your intended audience, not only developing a clear topic and set of supporting content to cover. Consider the type of writing you’re doing and for whom your audience.
Getting ready to write
Preparing to write is the next phase in the writing process. At this point, you’re arranging all of the ideas, connections, and conclusions that emerged throughout your brainstorming session into an outline.
An outline is essentially a skeleton of a finished piece of writing that maps out the themes you’ll cover and where each paragraph fits in. It provides a framework for your ideas to flow logically and coherently. Looking at outline templates online might be beneficial, especially if you’ve been assigned a type of writing that you’ve never done before.
Choosing reliable sources
You’ll also decide which sources to use at this point. You must cite your sources in various sorts of writing. If this is the case for your present work, this is the stage at which you should become acquainted with the applicable style guide and its citation formatting standards.
Before you decide to use a source, be sure it is appropriate for your work. The list of permitted sources for an academic writing project is often limited to academic articles, government or nonprofit research groups. Relevant sources are appropriate in any type of write-up. The purpose of your sources is to provide support for your article. Working with credible sources offers your writing a solid foundation, but working with untrustworthy sources undermines the perspective your writing adopts.
Setting the proper tone
This additionally serves as the stage during which you determine the tone of your work. Choosing the correct tone for your work is usually simple—if it’s an essay or similar piece of academic writing, it needs to be formal. For instance, If you’re writing a promotional piece, your tone should be engaging and emphasize the advantages of whatever you’re advertising. If you’re writing a cover letter, your tone should be assured but not arrogant. When you’re not sure what tone to use or how to attain it, conduct an online search for examples of the type of writing you’re creating and become acquainted with the structure, terminology, and overall tones employed.
Making your first draft
Don’t stress about making your write-up great just yet—the purpose of the rough draft stage is to get words on the page, not to churn out something publishable.
Begin creating your text, sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph, using the outline you developed.
A lot of authors don’t realize this, but you don’t have to write your rough copy from beginning to end. If you know exactly what you want to say in your third supporting paragraph but aren’t sure how to captivate readers in your opener, write that third supporting paragraph first and then return to the intro. When you hit a difficult point, it’s easy to become stuck and waste a lot of time trying to find out what to write. Save yourself time and worry, by writing the easy sections first, then moving on to the more difficult parts.
Revising and editing
When you have finished your rough draft, the following step in the writing process is to transform it into a final draft. This is editing.
Various types of editing will be used as you progress through the writing process. You’re content editing, line editing, and copy editing at this point. Later, you’ll proofread your writing and, depending on the subject matter, you may also fact-check it.
In some circumstances, you’re completely on your own when it comes to editing. In certain cases, editing your work entails incorporating criticism from an editor or instructor on your first draft. When confronted with the latter case, make sure to carefully study the comments and address or incorporate all of it.
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