My Writing Process Analysis

I came into college knowing the fundamentals of how to write an essay, yet I never knew what writing processes would work best for me. A writing process is a routine that helps writers become more effective and has procedures that vary amongst each individual. To incorporate a process to develop essays was my goal, so that is why I researched different procedures that would work best for me. Although many people struggle in developing an essay, writing an essay is simple when applying the correct methods. I found that prewriting, drafting, editing, and submitting helped me approach my essays better. Prewriting is a method that allows me to generate and clarify ideas before approaching the composition. Before starting my paper, I like to brainstorm
ideas about certain topics that I can mostly relate to. There are multiple prewriting strategies such as brainstorming, clustering, freewriting, looping, and the “journalist questions”. These prewriting strategies can be used in any case depending on the individual. But the technique that worked best for me was to start off by writing down the topic in the middle of a paper, think of the incidences in my life that relate to the certain topic, and draw a line to connect each thought to the subject. Doing this allows me to explore the relationships between ideas and readily understand the possible directions my paper could take. After writing all the occurrences down, I start narrowing down which idea best fits the theme of the essay. Having the main idea provides the reader with a central thought of what the essay is all about. Additionally, the main idea allows me to have a primary root of the entire paper; it enables me as a writer to think of supporting details that will guide the reader to understand the theme of the passage better. With a general idea of what I am going to propose to the reader, it leads me into the drafting phase of my essay. Drafting is a method that allows me to use my prewriting outline to identify a purpose of the piece and structure a small glimpse of the final paper. Now that I am able to narrow down what I want to write my essay, I start putting the idea into a complete thought. In the drafting phase, a writer doesn’t need to start off with the introduction. Some say that it might be difficult to start by writing an introduction simply because you do not yet know exactly what you are introducing. So my suggestion for other writers is that you are able to start anywhere you are more comfortable with. But I like to start off by providing background information in the introduction that is capable of intriguing the reader, yet also describe what I am about to display to the audience. Using the main idea that I thought of in the prewriting of my essay, it helps me develop a thesis statement for the introduction. The thesis statement is the last sentence of the introduction that contains the focus of my essay and tells the audience what the essay is going to be about. In the thesis statement, I have to declare what major topics I am going to be arguing about throughout my paper. Stating the main idea of each supporting subject allows me to introduce what I will be revealing to the audience. After labeling the focus of each paragraph, I start to develop the organization of the body paragraphs in the essay. I make sure to offer enough information in a refined order so that the reader is able to understand each issue clearly. When I am ready to close out the essay, I form a conclusion paragraph to wrap up the piece by connecting all of the related thoughts back towards the thesis that was stated in the introduction. Editing is a method where I check my work for any errors and correct them to allow the audience to comprehend the paper better.
Once I complete the rough draft, I prepare to print, check, and edit the entire paper for any mistakes. I believe that editing a paper gives me more benefits than drawbacks. Rather than just thinking of editing the essay as a negative process, it allows me to be reminded that this time is for working on creating a polished and refined piece of writing that would make me proud of myself. The typical errors that I check for are spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and formatting. To help me find the mistakes more easily, I like to read the paper aloud to myself. Reading it aloud and listening to my voice allows me to catch the mistakes; rather than just reading it off the computer screen and not noticing the mistakes. After I finish editing, I save the document and ask my peer, teacher, or submit it to Smart-Thinking for additional editing. This allows me to grab other people’s perspectives on my writing, and show me what I need to work on before submitting. I recommend editing an essay at least three times, so you will be able to enhance it after every revision. When I finish all three revisions, I would do a final edit and read through my paper once more before
submitting. Submitting is the final method that allows me to publish my finished paper after all the procedures prior to submission.
When I complete all of my requirements, I am ready for the final method of submitting. I like to check the requirements for the essay before submitting to make sure I followed all the guidelines and necessities. For example, the standard essay needs MLA formatting such as having a font size of 12, Times New Roman as the font, double spacing in between each line, and the correct indentions for paragraphs. Not following the requirements may cause a deduction of points for each mistake. Furthermore, I like to look at a grading rubric that my professor provides me. Having the rubric ensures that I have all the essential components of what my professor is looking for in an essay. Missing tasks from each section will also result in a deduction of points for each category. Once I finish checking all the necessities in my paper, I submit my essay to the required location. Failure to submit the essay grants me a zero for that assignment and a downhill trip to my overall
grade. The most important part of writing an essay is the process. Prewriting, drafting, editing, and submitting are merely methods that allowed me to construct a masterpiece. Prewriting is like studying; it gathers thoughts and materials about a subject so it can prepare you in the future. Drafting could be viewed as a practice test to see how well I prepared and organized my gathered opinions. Editing is what it is meant to do, correct and fix my mistakes within the exercise. Submitting is just like a final exam; it takes how well I used all the previous methods in one session. These skills will continue stack upon each other and build up towards different types of writing criteria that you will need to prepare. Discovering those explicit techniques and following each step, allows a writer to grasp a whole new concept with a matter of time and practice.