1. Writing for Success
Chapter 8: The Writing Process
Writing for Success Companion Slides by Melanie Jeffrey, Cerro Coso Community College is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://open.lib.umn.edu/writingforsuccess/.
2. Topics Covered in this Presentation
Understanding the Writing Process
Prewriting Models
Outlining
Drafting
Revising and Editing
3. Understanding the Writing Process
Understanding the writing process is essential if we are to become proficient
writers:
Exploring/ Invention Writing/ Development Revising/ Editing/ Publishing
Creative stage
Choosing a topic
Prewriting Techniques:
● Brainstorming
● Freewriting
● Questioning
● Listing
● Idea mapping
Narrowing your focus
See chapter 8.1 in Writing for
Success for more pre-writing tips*
Words on paper stage
Organizing ideas on paper/ making
a plan/ writing an outline
Developing a thesis
Writing Topic Sentences
Locating supporting ideas
First drafts
See chapter 8.2 and 8.3 of Writing
for Success for more tips on
outlining and drafting*
Revising
Editing
Paper submitted to Instructor,
class, institution, or uploaded to
turnitin.com
See chapter 8.4 of Writing for
Success for more tips on revising
and editing*
4. More about the Writing Process
•It is important to note that the writing process is a recursive process. That means that we don’t simply
follow these steps in a sequence: 1,2,3. Instead, we repeat the steps as needed:
That is to say: we explore a little, write until we run out of ideas, then explore some more, then write
some more and so on.
explore
write
Explore
some
more
Write
some
more
revise
5. Prewriting Models
Choosing a topic:
1. Using experience and observations
2. Reading
3. Freewriting
4. Asking questions
You also need to identify your purpose for writing. This can be found on the prompt.
6. Prewriting Models (cont.)
Freewriting:
Set a timer for 3-5 minutes
Write about your topic without stopping
Don’t worry about punctuation or spelling
If you make a mistake, keep going
If you don’t know what to write, write that, but then ask questions on the page to get refocused:
what am I supposed to be writing about oh i am supposed to be writing about
If your mind wanders, follow it for a bit, but then ask yourself questions on the page to get
refocused: what am I supposed to be writing about oh i am supposed to be writing about….
7. Prewriting Models (cont)
Asking Questions:
Who ? Who is affected or concerned with my topic?
What ? What is my topic?
When? When does my topic occur? When does it affect others?
Where? Where does it occur? Where does it affect others?
Why ? WHy does it happen? WHy does it affect others?
How? How does it affect others?
10. Outlining
Organizing Ideas / Rhetorical Modes
There are many ways to organize your information
Into paragraphs when writing essays:
Defining
Writing extended definitions
Exemplification
Providing examples
Classifying
Organizing information into logical groups
Comparing & contrasting
Making side by side comparisons
Cause & Effect
Identifying causes and effects
11. Outlining (cont)
Writing a thesis statement
The Thesis is a statement made about your topic that your paper intends to prove, illustrate, or at
least support.
Characteristics of a Good Thesis Statement
It expresses the main idea and purpose of the essay
It contains a controlling idea.
It is a complete sentence that usually appears in the essay’s introductory paragraph.
*at this point, you will only write a working thesis--we can refine this later when we revise.
12. Outlining (cont)
Writing an Outline
Place your introduction and thesis statement at the beginning, under roman numeral I.
Use roman numerals (II, III, IV, V, etc.) to identify main points that develop the thesis statement.
Use capital letters (A, B, C, D, etc.) to divide your main points into parts.
Use arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) if you need to subdivide any As, Bs, or Cs into smaller parts.
End with the final roman numeral expressing your idea for your conclusion.
13. Drafting
Begin writing with the part you know the most about
Write one paragraph at a time and then stop
Take short breaks to refresh your mind.
Be reasonable with your goals.
Keep your audience and purpose in mind as you write.
Set goals for first draft
14. Drafting (cont)
Basic elements:
An introduction that piques the audience’s interest, tells what the essay is about, and motivates readers to keep
reading.
A thesis statement that presents the main point, or controlling idea, of the entire piece of writing.
A topic sentence in each paragraph that states the main idea of the paragraph and implies how that main idea
connects to the thesis statement.
Supporting sentences in each paragraph that develop or explain the topic sentence. These can be specific facts,
examples, anecdotes, or other details that elaborate on the topic sentence.
A conclusion that reinforces the thesis statement and leaves the audience with a feeling of completion.
*see slides for chapter 9 for more information on thesis and topic sentences
15. Key Takeaways
All writers rely on steps and strategies to begin the writing process.
Prewriting is the transfer of ideas from abstract thoughts into words, phrases, and sentences on paper.
After gathering and evaluating the information you found for your essay, the next step is to write a working, or preliminary, thesis
statement.
The working thesis statement expresses the main idea that you want to develop in the entire piece of writing. It can be modified as you
continue the writing process.
The writer’s thesis statement begins the outline, and the outline ends with suggestions for the concluding paragraph.
Remember to include all the key structural parts of an essay: a thesis statement that is part of your introductory paragraph, three or more
body paragraphs as described in your outline, and a concluding paragraph. Then add an engaging title to draw in readers.
Write paragraphs of an appropriate length for your writing assignment. Paragraphs in college-level writing can be a page long, as long as
they cover the main topics in your outline.
Use your outline to guide the development of your paragraphs and the elaboration of your ideas. Each main idea, indicated by a roman
Editor's Notes
Week 2 day 1
•Has this ever happened to you? You have a writing assignment to complete and you sit down to write it (maybe even the night before it is due). You write out five words then delete two; you write a few more words and delete a few more, and so on—sound familiar?
•If this process sounds familiar, part of what might be happening is that you are attempting to complete two tasks at the same time: Exploring and Writing.
•Taking the time to prewrite is important in order to fully develop your ideas. The prewriting stage is where ideas are brainstormed—even if they seem silly—taking the time to prewrite about a topic allows you to explore how you really feel about a particular issue.
•If we try to sit down and write about a topic without prewriting our ideas first, we are basically trying to fix ideas and develop ideas at the same time—how can you fix an idea you haven’t fully explored? This is why we end up writing a few words and then deleting them.
•To fully explore and understand our topic and how we feel about it, we must take the time to prewrite and explore.
Although in this class, your topics are given to you, in many other classes you will need to choose your topic. Using these 4 strategies can help you decide the topic that is best for you.
Identify purpose: at this point have students identify purpose for essay 1
Explain to students that although in my essay prompts , the purpose is fairly easy to identify, other paper prompts might not be as detailed. In order to identify the purpose in other paper prompts, they should look for the verbs in the prompt; explain, describe, discuss, argue, develop, explore etc.
We can use these questions to help us develop ideas about our topic. For example in essay 1, we are discussing the impact of advertising. Let’s use these questions to help us generate some ideas.
Rhetoric = argument
Modes = type
Rhetorical modes = type of argument
Essay 1 uses classification--have class identify category in essay 1.
Note the underlined terms. A thesis is not merely general information about the topic, but rather, a thesis says something about your topic and adds insight.
In this class we will be writing full sentence outlines. WHen we come back to class we will write an outline for essay 1
