1. The Writing Process USING THE STRATEGIES OF EXPERIENCED WRITERS COPYRIGHT LISA MCNEILLEY, 2010

2. The Steps in the Process Idea Generation/Prewriting Planning/Organizing Drafting Revising and Editing Proofreading

3. Recursive Process Use steps in any order Backtrack to previous steps as needed Develop a strategy Your style Audience Writing task

4. Idea Generation/Prewriting Purpose: Find ideas for topics Develop ideas for content Test validity of topic Determine areas for further development

5. Strategies Clustering Asking Questions Brainstorming Free writing Talking

6. Planning/Organizing Purpose Make decisions about the development of text Organize ideas Achieve coherence

7. Organizing Strategies Develop a working thesis Develop a strategy/plan/writing approach Write an outline

8. Planning Make final decisions about audience and rhetorical situations Audience Purpose Style/tone

9. Drafting Purpose Get ideas onto the page Develop a starting point to shape into final product Create the first version of the essay

10. Drafting Strategies Write individual sections from your outline Write in any order—start with easier sections and do more difficult ones as you build confidence

11. More Drafting Strategies Don’t worry about end product—let yourself write garbage because you can fix it during revision Pull together sections into the form of the text you want Develop paragraphs

12. Revising and Editing Perform each step separately Revise first Edit last Use peer response—other people will catch things you didn’t

13. Revising Relate points to thesis—everything should be relevant Focus on content and clarity of ideas Provide enough specific support and evidence Make sure organization is logical Add, delete, move, rewrite—your revised draft should be significantly different from your first draft

14. Editing Look at sentence level issues Correct grammar and punctuation errors Check spelling Pay close attention to names, dates, numbers and quotes Don’t rely on computer programs— they make mistakes

15. Last, But Most Important Read your paper out loud!