The writing process

In the textbook "The Writers Response" (p. 2-7) authors Stephen McDonald and William Salomone break down the writing process.

 The solution to effective writing is to follow a process. This process is divided into three stages, prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Prewriting is a way to decide what your central idea is about. Some of the examples of prewriting include: brainstorming, free writing, clustering and possibly talking to other people. Prewriting can happen anytime of the writing process, not necessarily the beginning. Prewriting is gathering information for the actual writing. The writing stage is the part where you actually sit down and begin to write. It makes it very hard if you did not prewrite before. If you hit a wall, you should return to prewriting. Rewriting is the stage where the writer revises and edits their paper. Revising is rewording, reorganizing, and probably rewriting. Editing is correcting spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Editing is fixing the mechanics of a paper. You need both editing and revising to make a good paper. If you get writers block, a good technique is freewriting. Freewriting is when you write whatever is on your mind for a limited period of time. You don't need to worry about the mechanics at this time. Another effective technique is brainstorming. This is the act of listing your ideas with bullet points, writing them as they come to your mind. Brainstorming can help you decide what topic is most important. Clustering is a visual aid to help you organize your material. Your main topic is in the center circle, and from there each thought is in a separate circle connected to the main idea. All three of these techniques are very effective ways of prewriting. Something to always remember when an assignment is due: Think in ink. Writing is not about whats on the paper, but more so organizing your thoughts.

In the past i had always skipped the prewriting step and went straight to the writing. Writing is a process just like math. It takes time, effort, hard work, and a plan. Now i know that every time i sit down to start a paper, i can follow these steps and have greater success. What i really learned is that good writing requires more than just writing, but you have to organize your ideas and get them on paper by using the process. Also once your actual writing is done, you have to go back, maybe more than once, and revise and edit it. It is very rare that the first draft is perfect. Now that I have the tools, i can imagine myself becoming a more polished writer.