The Writing Process

Read the sentence. We cleaned up the creek. Which of the following best elaborates on the example sentence?

A dozen people filled 50 trash bags in only two hours.

Narrowing Your Topic The scope of your topic will dictate the amount of detail and explanation you'll need to provide. For example, if your topic is food, you could write a 300-page book comparing the cuisines of the world, a 10-page paper on the unique features of French cuisine, or a three-page essay explaining the process of making crepes. To identify the topic you'll want to develop, narrow your general topic to one you can address adequately in the time and space you anticipate. You will find a topic-narrowing activity in each lesson. Using a Pentad To examine your topic as if it were a drama, use the pentad. This strategy lets you analyze your subject by identifying five key elements. Notebook Copy the five key elements into your notebook.

Actors Who did the action? Acts What was done? Scenes When or where was it done? Agencies How was it done? Purposes Why was it done?

What Is Prewriting? Just as competitive swimmers need to warm up by stretching before a major race, writers prepare for writing with their own techniques. Before you dive into a first draft, take the time to test the waters by considering the topic you'll address, gathering the details you'll include, and identifying the main idea you'll convey.

Choosing Your Topic Before you can write the great American novel, argue persuasively, or respond to a work of literature, you need a topic. Try the strategy here to explore the process of choosing your topic. Brainstorming Whenever you answer the question, "What should we do today?" you are using the technique of brainstorming. Using a formalized version of this strategy can help you find a writing topic. Make a list of potential ideas that a category suggests, allowing each idea to prompt another. By freeing your mind to make quick connections between ideas for several minutes, you generate a wide list of topics from which to choose.

Which of the following is the most powerful lead to a story?

Do you want to live to 150?

Moving Forward This guided tour of the writing process has presented you with an overview of strategies and techniques that can enhance your writing. Now consider some of the options you have for publishing and presenting your work. Building Your Portfolio A writing portfolio captures the successes and experiences of your life as a writer. Keep your finished writing products in a folder, box, or other organized container. Use it to record your progress and growth as a writer. In addition to providing a showcase of your finished work, your portfolio can also serve as a place for works in progress, records of peer conferences, documentation of presentations, and inspirations for future writing. Reflecting on Your Writing Beyond learning about the varied topics you'll address through the writing chapters, strive to learn something about your own writing process with each assignment you complete. Assessing Your Writing While all writing should meet certain criteria for clarity, each type of writing must also meet requirements unique to its form. For example, a test response must answer a given question, but persuasive writing must present a fair and logical argument to convince readers.

During editing and proofreading, you do not need to _____. A) revise overall structure

What Are Editing and Proofreading? Once you have revised your draft for content, edit and proofread it to correct any errors. Before you start, take a moment to consider the types of grammar, usage, and mechanics errors you tend to make. Keep this list and revise it as you become a more experienced writer. Refer to it as you write all of your essays for the school year. Make sure you pay close attention to the issues on this list, but do not ignore other issues all together.

Focusing on Proofreading Whether you work in an office and develop professional publications or you share your writing with others using a less formal technique, the care you take to identify and correct errors will show the pride you take in your work. Look at your draft with this specific element in mind. However, always review your work to correct any errors you see. Here is an important category you should address as you revise your work: Scrutinize Spelling Take a look at every word in your draft, consulting a dictionary to check words that raise doubt. Confirm the spelling of any proper nouns, such as the names of people and places.

Considering Your Audience and Purpose To make your writing more effective, next take time to consider your audience or the people you intend to address. Then, focus on a purpose, or your specific reason for writing. Analyzing Your Audience The knowledge level, background, and interest your audience has will affect their ability to understand and respond to the points you make. For example, if you are writing to show young children how to train a pet, you would choose a specific level of vocabulary and detail. In contrast, if you are addressing the same topic for an audience of adults, your word choice and sophistication would be different. Whenever you write, take a moment to answer questions like the ones presented below. Then, use your responses to target your specific audience. What does my audience already know about my topic? What background or context do they need to understand my main ideas? What details will interest or influence my audience?

Gathering Details If you collect the information you need before you begin to write, you'll make the writing task easier. Gather facts, details, examples, or any other information that will help you prove the point you want to make in your draft. Analyzing by Cubing Use cubing to study your subject from many angles. The experience of looking closely at your subject will improve the depth of your writing. Follow these steps to analyze your subject by cubing: Describe It—Explain the physical attributes of your subject. Associate It—List ideas or objects your subject suggests. Apply It—Tell how your topic can be used or what it does. Analyze It—Break your subject into smaller components. Compare and Contrast It—Explain how other ideas or objects are similar to and different from yours. Argue For or Against It—Promote or reject the idea.

What is one of the benefits of keeping a writing portfolio?

It captures the successes and experiences of your life as a writer.

What is narration?

Narration tells a story.

Revising Your Word Choice As you revise your writing, check to see whether each word is the best one for your purpose. Generating a Synonym Bank When you write about a specific topic, you may find that you use the same words to name it each time. For example, if you write an editorial to state your position about school taxes, you may use the words student or funding frequently.

Now move on to identify the key words in your writing, and circle examples of them in your draft. Using a thesaurus, generate a synonym bank, and revise your draft as appropriate. Take a look at the illustration to see an example of generating a synonym bank. Write It! Take a look at these three popularly used words: laugh, good, and go. Can you create a synonym bank for each word?

Which statement is not true about prewriting?

Prewriting helps you correct all of the errors you'll make.

Revising Your Paragraphs To begin another layer of revision, look at each paragraph in your draft. Topical paragraphs that develop an idea should present information without introducing contradictions or distractions. To ensure unity, eliminate this type of information. Circling Contradictory Information For each topical paragraph in a draft, identify the main idea the paragraph develops. Read the paragraph, confirming that each sentence supports that idea. If you notice words, sentences, or phrases that distract from your main idea, circle these elements. When you have reviewed each paragraph, evaluate the circled information. Consider these revision options: If the circled items are important to your essay, write a new paragraph to address the information, revise the topic sentence, or introduce transitions to make the information fit. Eliminate items you cannot link to your essay's main idea.

Revising Your Sentences Generate energy in your writing by analyzing and revising your sentence beginnings. Identifying Sentence Beginnings To evaluate the variety of your sentence beginnings, list the first word of each sentence in your draft. Review your list to identify any pattern your draft includes. You may have begun many sentences with the word I or The. To improve your draft, insert phrases or clauses that break the pattern. Look at the illustration to see how this works.

What Is Drafting? Writing often is not easy. It doesn't always come naturally, but that does not mean that you are not a talented writer. Great writers have emerged from a variety of places and backgrounds, and often talk about how difficult the process of writing can be at times. In this video, writer Richard Rodriguez discusses becoming a writer of various forms and genres, or types, of literature, despite growing up in a household without books.

Shaping Your Writing Focusing on the Form Each type of writing follows a set of expectations and conventions. For example, persuasion provides details meant to convince, exposition provides elaboration in order to explain, and narration tells a story. Whatever your final product, identify the expectations of the form you've chosen, and keep this focus in mind as you draft. Grabbing Readers' Interest With a Powerful Lead The opening sentences of your writing present you with an opportunity to grab your readers' attention and invite them to keep reading. Consider a quotation, a compelling fact, or an intriguing description, and then link the lead to your topic.

Providing Elaboration Whether you want to convince an audience of your position on a controversial topic or show readers all the atmosphere of a festive holiday evening, elaboration of your ideas will help your writing succeed. The SEE method can help you add details, facts, and examples to any writing you do. Using the SEE Method The SEE method of Statement, Extension, and Elaboration can strengthen your writing by encouraging you to provide a greater depth of information. Begin with a statement that conveys a main idea. Write an extension by restating or explaining the first sentence. Elaborate further by providing even more details about the main idea. When you have completed these three steps, you will have shed more light on your subject.

Statement We decorated the room for a surprise party. Extension The balloons and streamers we draped across the room transformed it. Elaboration When Belinda walked in, we tossed confetti, showering her with sparkles to complete the effect.

Color-Coding to Compare the Draft to Purpose To be sure your draft achieves the effects you planned, return to your prewriting work, and follow these steps: Write your purpose on a self-sticking note, and attach it to your draft for easy reference. Then, review your draft to highlight sentences, words, or phrases that address your purpose. If you can't identify at least one sentence in each paragraph, consider adding or revising a sentence to clarify how the paragraph supports your purpose.

Take a look at the illustration to see an example of color-coding to compare the draft to purpose. Here, the writer added more details to make the writing achieve its intended purpose of encouraging people to travel. When you revise your paper, be sure to have a clear understanding of your paper's purpose. The details you include should convey that purpose to your readers.

Here are two more categories to consider as you revise your work: Follow Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Rules Apply the conventions of grammar, usage, and mechanics to everything you write. For example, analyze your writing for its use of complete sentences, subject-verb agreement, and correct punctuation. Fact Check When you include information from outside sources, confirm the accuracy of your work. Consult your research notes or double-check by using encyclopedias, the Internet, or other sources. Take a look at the illustration to see an example of an accuracy checklist.

What Are Publishing and Presenting? Each piece of writing should be a learning experience, and should increase your writing abilities. Write It! Before you move forward, generate a list of questions you might ask yourself as you reflect on a piece of writing. For example: What did you find the most challenging? How did you accomplish it? What did you learn from this piece of writing?

Color-Coding Clues to Revision To give your writing the best chance to succeed, devote attention to the revision stage of the writing process. Ratiocination is a word that means "to think logically." Apply this approach to your writing by marking your draft with color-coded clues that will help you focus on one element of your writing at a time. When segments are highlighted, bracketed, or circled for your review, you can evaluate your draft and make informed revisions. Ratiocination strategies will help you revise structure, paragraphs, sentences, and word choice.

What does ratiocination mean? A) It means "to think logically." Keep this is mind as you are revising your draft, looking at one important element at a time.

The Process of Writing The writing process varies widely from writer to writer. Some writers like to write early in the morning when the house is still quiet and the sun is rising. Others like to write late at night after the day's events have sunk in and can be translated onto the page. Some writers prefer to write outside. Others may prefer to sit at a desk. There really is no correct way to get a writer's creative juices flowing. The answer is personal preference. In this video, writer Richard Rodriguez talks about how he likes to sit in solitude when he writes, and how he uses a pen and pencil instead of a computer when he writes.

While where you write and how you write are up to you, there are a few steps you should always incorporate into your writing process: Prewriting—Freely exploring topics, choosing your topic, and beginning to gather and organize details before you write Drafting—Getting your ideas down on paper in roughly the format you intend Revising—Correcting any major errors and improving the writing's form and content Editing and Proofreading—Polishing the writing; fixing errors in grammar, spelling, and mechanics Publishing and Presenting—Sharing your writing These steps may seem sequential, but writers may jump back to earlier stages as they work. For example, as you draft, you may realize you want to learn more about your topic. Similarly, during revision, you may need to conduct additional prewriting to refine or elaborate upon an idea. You may even leave a piece of writing in the prewriting stage, save it in your portfolio, and come back to it several weeks later.

Revising Your Overall Structure Whether you are revising a business letter, a research paper, or a short story, a logical first step of the revision process is to look at the overall structure of your draft. Before you begin analyzing word choice and polishing punctuation, make sure that the structure of your writing is sound. There is little to no point in editing mechanical errors like these until the overall structure of your essay is sound.

Why should the process of overall revision precede the editing of mechanical errors? A) Revision should precede editing because you will have to re-edit every single time you revise the actual content of your writing, which would be redundant and time-consuming. Fix the big stuff first, and then move on to the little things.

Using Hexagonal Writing When writing about literature, use hexagonal writing to gather the details you'll need in order to address your subject in a thoughtful, thorough analysis. The instructions in the illustration below show you how to complete a hexagonal diagram. As you complete your hexagonal diagram, use your responses as a springboard for collecting more of the information you'll need to support your ideas.

evaluation: Decide whether you liked the work. Plot: Summarize or paraphrase the work. personal allusion: note ideas or experiences the selection suggests to you Theme: State the message the work conveys. analysis: Cite evidence to support the theme. Literary allusion: Name other literature with a similar theme.

Ratiocination can help you revise your work by getting you to _____.

focus on one element of your writing at a time

Which fits in a pentad under the category of agencies?

my swimming skills

Peer Review You may be your best editor; however, tapping the reactions of your peers can give you useful suggestions. Peer reviewers can help you see things from a distance, noticing strengths or weaknesses that you may not have seen. Ask for Specific Feedback Instead of asking whether your paper was effective, focus your questions to get more specific feedback. Take a look at the chart to see some suggestions.

revising for overall purpose: Use color-coding revising for sentence variety: List the first word of each sentence revising for word choice: Generate a synonym bank revising for strengths and weaknesses: Use a peer review

Prewriting In this section, we have learned the following: Use a formalized version of brainstorming to find a writing topic. Narrow your topic to bring your own unique viewpoint into focus. Using a pentad to examine your topic as if it were a drama. Analyze your audience and refine your purpose to make sure your writing is effective. Gather facts, details, examples, or any other information that will help you prove the point you want to make in your draft. Using cubing to study your subject from many different angles. Using hexagonal writing to when writing about literature. Drafting and Revising In this section, we have learned the following: Identify the expectations for the form you have chosen, and maintain this focus as you draft. Grabbing readers' interest with a powerful lead. Elaborate your ideas by adding details, facts, and examples. Using ratiocination to focus on one element at a time during revision. Revise the overall structure of your writing by reordering or adding paragraphs, as needed. Review your paragraphs to make sure that each paragraph presents a specific idea. Generate energy in your writing by analyzing and revising your sentence beginnings. Check to see whether each word is the best one for your purpose. Have peer reviewers offer specific feedback as you revise your work. Editing and Proofreading In this section, we have learned the following: Proofread by checking your spelling, grammar, usage, mechanical rules, and facts. Build a portfolio to record your progress as a writer. Reflect on your writing to learn about your own writing process. Assess your writing to make sure it meets all the needed criteria.

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