STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL WRITING!

The writing process

consists of strategies that will help you proceed from

idea or purpose to the final statement.

• Writing is a process.

• The purpose of writing is to communicate something to the reader.

• Writing gives your thoughts substance and form.

• Anyone can write.

• Successful writing does not just happen.

• Organization is the key.

• Writing begins before the pen hits the paper.

THE WRITING PROCESS

Prewriting

DraftingRevising

Editing

Finished Product

ThePrewriting

Process

Prewriting is anything you do

before you write a draft of your

document

Prewriting includes thinking,taking notes, talking to people,

gathering information,developing ideas, organizing,researching, choosing a topic

Prewriting can take two forms:

You may be given no guidelines at all other than towrite. Or, you may be assigned a topic to write

about. Either way, you must prewrite forgood writing to occur.

If no guidelines are given, prewriting will help you choose a topic that you are comfortable writing about. If the topic

is already assigned, you can skip this part. But you will need to use the prewriting time to organize your thoughts

and ideas:Locate your subjectNarrow your topic

Choose your controlling ideaGenerate details to support your idea

Formulate your conclusion

Prewriting Techniques• Freewriting/imagestreaming• Brainstorming/making a jotlist• Clustering/mapping/webbing• Asking questions• Journaling• Outlining• Researching/developing ideas from reading• Interviewing outside experts• Using graphic organizers• Using the pentad method

• Prewriting is the most critical

step to writing.

• Prewriting provides the direction, and the organization to your writing.

WRITING YOUR ROUGH DRAFT

Drafting occurs when you put your ideas into sentences and paragraphs.

Youare concentrating on getting your ideas down

on paper. You are trying to explain and support your ideas fully, and to make sure you connect your thoughts. A draft is writer-centered—that

means it is you telling yourself what you know about the topic. When you write your

rough draft, you should let yourself go. Write what you know and what you want to say. The rough draft is mostly for you; the only people besides you who will see your rough draft are

people you ask to read it.

Revising is taking your rough draft and preparing it for others to read.

While the rough draft is writer-centered, the revising makes your draft reader-

centered.

Revising includes:Checking your content

Checking your organization

Checking your language

Checking Your Content

• Did you develop your topic?• Have you removed information that does not fit

the topic?• Did you provide adequate support?• Is the tone that you want your writing to have

conveyed?• Do you have a variety of sentence structures,

patterns, and lengths?• Are sentences clear, concise, and complete?• Is the order logical?

Checking Your Organization

• Did you maintain your organization pattern throughout?

• Are your ideas unified?

• Did you use transitions--between ideas and between paragraphs?

• Is your writing coherent (ideas related)?

• Is the order logical?

• Do you have a summation of the ideas?

Checking Your Language

• Is your word usage appropriate for the audience, the purpose, and the occasion?

• Does your tone fit the audience and the subject?• Did you use good diction (best word choice for

the purpose and audience)?• Are your descriptions vivid and complete?• Is there a strong hook?• Have you used a thesaurus to avoid

redundancy?• Are you concise yet thorough?

Points to Remember about Revising:• Revising involves intense, systematic rewriting.• Revising is done more than once to a rough

draft.• A revising checklist will help call your attention to

the things you need to check.• Revising focuses on making the writing itself

better.• Revising involves adding to, moving, cutting, and

retaining the ideas in the rough draft.• Input from a reader can help make your

revisions better.

What is Editing?

• Spelling

• Capitalization

• Punctuation

• Grammar

• Sentence Structure

• Subject/Verb Agreement

• Consistent Verb Tense

• Word Usage

Editing Hints

• Use SpellCheck, but don’t rely on it solely. It does not catch all mistakes.

• Read your writing aloud, to yourself or to someone else. This will help you catch your mistakes.

• Use an “editor.”• Go through your paper sentence by sentence,

searching intently for any mistakes.• Use a handbook to find information to correct

mistakes you are not sure about.

The final draft is the finished product.

The final draft is the only draft of the paper that your

audience sees.The final draft is your “published work.”

Congratulations!You are a

Writer!