2. What is drafting?
Your draft is your first version you will finish and polish later.
For example, writing a short story:
Preliminary Drafting
Decide on the genre, mood / tone and narrative voice
Decide on a target audience
Define a purpose
Create a plot outline
Brainstorm character details
Decide on settings
Write a first version of the story
Intermediate Drafting
Revise your first draft again and again, looking for what does not work and how to better convey the story to the readers.
Final Drafting
Give your story to others in the target audience to see how they receive it, and make necessary amendments.

3. Why is drafting important?
Drafting is vital to successful writing.
Drafting builds the framework of your final paper. A well built framework gives you a good chance of writing effectively. A poor framework makes success difficult.
Nobody gets it right the first time.
All forms of writing need to be drafted. Even professional writers don’t write perfectly the first draft. Think of your first try as the start of something better.
Doing multiple drafts gives you more chances to find errors and improve the paper. This is why it is vital you make time for multiple drafts (at least 2) during the writing process.
Even professional writers who work to a deadline and write at a single sitting still have to return to parts of it again and again to get it just right.
The importance of just getting it on the page.
You might be putting off starting your work because you’re worried it won’t be good enough. Remember: There is no chance of fixing what has not yet been written!

4. Why is drafting important?
Deadlines don’t mean it’s done.
Writers can ,and do, return to an already published piece and revise to make it better.
Think of the due date as an inconvenience. You can continually improve a piece of writing in English.
Writing drafts gives you the opportunity to:
Get all of your great ideas down before you forget them.
Catch problems early on.
See where the paper may not be working.
Rework / re do what is not working.
Learn from your mistakes.
Get the best arrangement of ideas and find different ways of expressing them.
Spend your time and energy focusing on the quality of your writing, not just the content.
Get feedback from outside sources, ie your target audience and your English teacher.
Provide evidence of the development of your work (this is particularly important for SACE in Year 11 and 12).

5. Proofreading
Proofreading is a form of editing where text is read in order to detect errors and make / indicate corrections.
Careful proofreading changes the readers’ perception of your work. If your work is error free readers will regard you as:
Professional.
Knowledgeable.
Correct.
Intelligent.
Careful proofreading increases the readers’ ability to understand your work in the way you want them to. If your work is error free it will:
Be clear and easy to understand.
Flow logically.
Make sense.
Say what you intended it to say.

6. When the teacher is proofreading …
They make suggestions and indicate errors (not do your work for you). They can only work with you at your current level (see below). Submitting a draft does not mean full marks. Proofreading: (Check the text for errors.) Line editing / Copyediting: (Check for anything that may hinder the reader.) Substantive/developmental: (Check the content.)