The Six Stages of the Writing Process

Creating (Writing for Self)

Stage 1: Gathering Details

Gathering details vs. gathering ideas: Gather details because ideas are too abstract. Unless ideas are expressed in specific and concrete details, the ideas may not lead readers to say the same thing. For instance, the word "dog" may lead someone to see their mother's pomeranian, someone else to think "furry," someone else to be frightened because of a bad scare they received as a child, and someone else to remember their father's favorite hunting beagle. Specific and concrete details, however, lead readers to "see" the same things. Include sensory details (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings) and counting details (number, size, weight, etc.).

The key to gathering details is to keep our internal editor quiet during this creating stage. We have to allow ourselves the freedom of discovering what we want to say. Each prewriting technique has its own advantages and disadvantages, and we should experiment with different techniques. Prewriting takes advantage of the way we store memories by association. Logic and order come after the prewriting process.

Stage 2: Discovering a Purpose

Purpose:The hardest question to answer when writing is why. Writers have to have a purpose for writing about a topic, and the purpose must somehow be significant, important, or valuable.

Ex. Writing about changing a tire

Everyone who drives a car needs to know basic roadside maintenance, and one of the most basic lessons is how to change a tire.

Ex. Writing about a summer vacation

One of the most beautiful and relaxing vacations you can take is a cruise on the Carribean.

Writers discover a purpose as they see the relationships and connections between details. In other words, ideas are the relationships between details. The main idea of a piece of writing is the single purpose that explains why the writer is writing about that topic. Everyone assumes that finding a topic is the hard part of writing. Actually, the difficult part is finding a reason for writing about that topic. I could assign everyone to write an essay about a "tin can." The topic is specific; the problem is "why write about it." Until a writer can discover a "reason" for writing about the topic, he or she cannot proceed.

The relationship between purpose, thesis, and mode: The purpose or reason for writing about a topic is the same as the thesis of the writing. When that purpose is expressed in a clear statement that identifies the topic and the reason for writing about that topic, that clear statement is the thesis statement. While not all essays have a thesis statement, every essay must have a clear thesis or purpose.

There are three general purposes when writing: to make someone do something, to make someone understand something, or to make someone feel something. These three purposes correspond to the three main rhetorical modes: persuasion, exposition, and expression.

When looking for a purpose, focus on what is significant, important, or valuable. We make what is personally significant, important, or valuable universally appealing to our readers by focusing on issues that touch the human condition--situations that relate to life issues everyone faces. When we discover our purpose, we state it in an explaining sentence, a sentence that identifies the subject of the essay and explains its significance, importance, or value by making a point about it. This sentence (thesis) stands as an explanation for the entire essay.

Stage 3: Selecting and Ordering Details to fit a Purpose

Until we have at least a working thesis or some idea of what we are trying to say, it is impossible to decide either what should be included in/excluded from the essay or the order in which details should appear.

The decision about what details to include and what order to place them in depends upon your purpose. Select only the details that support your purpose. Just because something happened isn't reason enough to include it in your paper.

Order details to fit your purpose. For instance, if your purpose is to explain a process, order the details logically step by step. A paper without order is confusing and chaotic. The mode of an essay grows naturally out of the purpose.

Critiquing (Writing for Others)

Stage 4: Revision: Sharpening purpose and details

Revision means re-seeing. Once a paper has been written so that it makes sense to a reader, it has to be re-visioned and re-written so that it makes sense to the reader. It is not enough to write so that the reader knows what you mean. You must write so that the reader sees the way you see.

Writers find it difficult to see their writing through someone else's eyes. I have had students read their papers to me and correct grammatical errors and fill in missing words without ever realizing what they were doing. Even when I have had them read their paper again, they still did not realize that they were changing what was on the page. Instead of seeing what they had written, they saw what they were thinking. In order to revise (re-see), writers need to create some space between themselves and their writing. One way to do this is to set your writing aside for a day or two. Another trick is to type your essay. The typewritten essay, because it is no longer in your handwriting and because it resembles printed materials, gains distance from the writer. A third way to gain perspective through distance is to listen as someone else reads the essay, paying attention to the things he or she changes (may indicate errors), the places he or she stumbles (may indicate awkward spots), or the places where he or she backtracks and re-reads (may indicate problems in clarity).

Stage 5: Editing

Editing means rewriting the paper so that the language is more effective--focus on effective paragraphs, sentences, and words.

As writers, we have to develop our "writing voice," a voice slightly more formal than our "conversational voice," a voice that is slightly self-conscious, aware of the rhythms of language in the same way that our "singing voice" is aware. When editing, we let loose the demon critic inside us, but we keep him focused on our writing and not focused on browbeating us, keep him working on fixing our writing and not complaining about what bad writers we are. The truth is every writer makes mistakes. Anyone who claims otherwise is deluding himself or herself. The secret is not in not making errors, but in learning how to correct them and developing good habits that prevent them.

Stage 6: Proofreading

Proofreading is the spit and polish before a paper is turned in.

Sometimes students get the impression that I don't think grammar is important. Nothing could be further from the truth. Good grammar reflects good thinking, and good grammar reveals professionalism. Treat every paper you write as if it were an attachment to your resume, an example of your professionalism. Think ink. Skip lines. Write on the front side of pages only. Use white lined notebook paper (and don't rip it out of a composition book leaving those serrated edges dangling at the side). Type whenever possible. Although meaning is the most important thing in any piece of writing, meaning can be overlooked when the packaging sends the wrong message.