Prewriting - Think of an Idea
- Generate ideas by brainstorming, clustering, asking reporters' questions, and freewriting.
- gather information from reading, taking notes, interviews, etc.
- consider your assignment, audience, purpose, and tone.
Drafting/Writing - Put your idea into writing
- Use ideas from prewriting.
- Write what comes to mind; don't worry about errors at this stage.
- Elaborate upon ideas; explain them more fully.
- Explore questions that you have raised in your own mind, or that others have raised after reading your rough draft.
- Put ideas into sentences and paragraphs.
Revising - Improve your rough draft.
- Add, delete, rearrange, and/or combine words, sentences, paragraphs.
- Add supporting detail and examples.
- Arrange them in a pattern of development appropriate to your topic.
- Go back to your prewriting material for more ideas, if needed.
- Prepare an opening paragraph that announces your topic, states your thesis, and establishes the proper tone.
- Prepare a final paragraph that states the importance, significance, and/or benefit of what readers have learned.
Editing / Proofreading - Reread and revise as needed
- Revise the style to fit the assignment, audience, and purpose more properly.
- Correct grammatical errors.
- Correct capitalization errors.
- Correct punctuationerrors.
- Improve word choice and sentence variety.
Publish - Prepare and type the final draft.
- Add a title that covers the essay topic and attracts readers' attention.
- Follow required format for first page, body pages, page numbering, and - if needed - Work Cited page.
- Include parenthetical references ( author and page), if needed.
- Provide 1.25-inch left and right margins and 1-inch top and bottom margins.
- Use 12-point, Times New Roman or Arial font. Double space all text, including the heading, title, paragraphs, short or long quotations and works cited.
