Welcome to the Oxy Online Writing Lab
|
The writing process is recursive, meaning you can go back and forth between any of the stages as often as you need to. In fact, good writers often do just that, re-visiting each step in the process in order to make their work as complete and well-written as possible. The more work you put in, the better your final paper will be. "Writing is a fluid process created by writers as they work. Accomplished writers move back and forth between the stages of the process, both consciously and unconsciously. Young writers, however, benefit from the structure and security of following the writing process in their writing." -Gardner and Johnson (1997) Prewriting is the most often overlooked stage of the writing process, and often the most important. Prewriting allows you to generate ideas for your writing without the rigidity and structure drafting and other stages impose. Coming up with different possible ideas you want to express in your paper gives you material to work with once you start drafting. You don't need to use every idea you come up with - in fact, you probably won't use most of them. But just as you can't build a house without wood, you can't start writing your paper until you know what you want to say. Just as the name implies, prewriting can include all different ways of creating ideas:
Take the time to do prewriting before you start drafting, and you'll find it that much easier once you actually sit down and start getting your paper on paper. Drafting is the stage writers often fear the most, but is can be the most forgiving and flexible. Unlike editing, which focuses on the reader as the important audience for the paper, drafting focuses on the writer and his or her need to freely develop those ideas created in prewriting. Try to remember that in drafting you are not creating a finished piece, you're simply trying to get the ideas you sketched out into a more coherent form that you can then edit, revise, and shape into a finished paper. Just as with prewriting, there is no one definitive way to draft your paper. Some people write out sections of an imaginary whole, some write outlines to begin organizing their papers, some draft incomplete paragraphs to get the ideas they do have into a structure, and some write as much of the paper as they can with the intention of going back and revising it. Whatever way you choose to get your rough draft out, keep in mind that this is your chance to take your basic ideas and put them into a more coherent whole, including logical thesis statements for each paragraph and plenty of clear support for your observations. The Thesis Machine will ask you a series of questions. Your answers to them will help you define your topic and produce a working thesis, as well as supporting theses for each paragraph. Many students confuse revising with editing. While it's good to correct mistakes you notice just about anytime (though in prewriting and drafting you should really just let your ideas flow) revising is actually the opportunity for you to go back to your draft and clarify your ideas. Revising is in large part simply a variation on drafting, and good writers will usually go through this process several times before they actually get to the editing process, let alone publishing. Don't be afraid to make major changes, either. You may find yourself needing to clarify, add, or eliminate sentences, paragraphs, or even whole pages in an effort to make your paper a thoughtful, cohesive piece of work that conveys your thoughts and the research you've done. Remember that your draft was merely a way to structure your ideas into a form you could work with. Revising is the real key to making sense of your work and finishing with a good paper. Don't forget to check that your thesis is still the actual main point of your paper. Often as you are writing you'll find yourself changing your thesis is subtle ways. Now is your chance to go back and revise it if you need to. This is a great time to get some outside input on your paper, too. Ask your classmates to review your work (and offer to review theirs.) Get help from one of the Writing Advisers at the CAE. Often your professor is willing to review your draft before you hand it in; this can be an invaluable source of help, as she is the person you most want to understand what you are trying to say! This is your opportunity to really polish your work and make it shine. Good editing can make a paper stand out from the crowd and let the reader really think about your ideas. Bad editing can make a well written paper unreadable and keep the reader from understanding what you are trying to say. Editing involves more than just using a spell checker (especially considering how many homonyms can slip past them!). You'll want to check for all of the following when you edit your (hopefully) final draft:
This is one place where you really want to take your time and make sure you get it right. Give yourself time between your final revision and your first edits - at least a few hours, preferably a night. One of the biggest dangers in editing is reading what you thought you wrote rather than what is actually on the page. Try reading your paper backwards paragraph by paragraph. It will help you to read what is actually there rather than thinking about the paragraph you know is coming up next. For spelling, do the same word by word in sentences. Pay careful attention to errors you commonly make. You might try keeping a list of them in a file or on a sheet of paper nearby. Use good tools as well as good people; a good dictionary, thesaurus, and writer's handbook are musts for any writer. There's a great checklist of common errors at the University of Wisconsin Writing Center you can go over as a check. And don't just proof your work on-screen; the human eye is better with subtractive lighting (such as that from light reflecting off a page) than with additive lighting (the kind a computer screen uses.) Print it out and go over it with a red, green, or purple pen. Finally, you're ready to publish your masterpiece! For most students, this means printing out a clean copy to hand in to your instructor. But don't slip up at this step and ruin all your hard work. Have you determined what citation format you need to use? Different classes call for different formatting, and the wrong one can cost you that "A" grade. If your work is really good, talk to a faculty member about publication in a journal or anthology. Some of the work you've read in your own college classes may very well have been written by people who were students at the time themselves. Consider submitting your work for an upcoming conference in your field. Use the internet to get your work out there. There are self-publishing sites available and online publishers that might be interested in your work. Just remember, all self respecting writers take the time and effort to make sure all of the other steps are thoroughly completed before they even consider letting their work be submitted to the masses. If you've been careful with each step of the writing process, then you can be proud to show off your finished paper. |
