The Writing Process
The writing process includes the different phases of your writing–prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing.
Prewriting
Before drafting a paper, use writing to explore your thoughts about the assignment and your ideas for writing. You might wish to use listing, freewriting, brainstorming, mapping, or cubing to discover what you know, what interests you, and what you want to explore about the topic.
Drafting
Drafting is the process of getting down the paragraphs that will eventually create your paper. There is no one right way to draft. Some authors write chunks of information at a time. Others may sit down for a marathon session and type out an entire draft at once. One goal of drafting is to develop a discussion that has a beginning, middle, and end, also called the introduction, body, and conclusion.
Revising
Revising involves changing and improving the content (paragraphs, transitions, order of ideas) of your draft. As you revise, try not to be too attached to your writing. Put yourself in your reader’s place when trying to decide what content should stay, what should go, and what should be added.
Editing
Editing focuses on finding and correcting errors errors of sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, word use, and similar aspects of language. One simple way to begin the editing process is to read your paper out loud. Many writers find that they can hear errors they might not have seen.