Developmental Writing Process Overview Prewriting n n Prewriting

Developmental Writing Process Overview

Prewriting n n Prewriting is a way of generating ideas, narrowing a topic, or finding a direction. Talking, Freewriting, Brainstorming, Journal Writing, Reading and Internet Searches are ways of prewriting.

Organizing your ideas n Organizing your thoughts and ideas is the second major step in the writing process. Once you have completed your prewriting activities you can begin organizing your ideas and identifying your main idea and the ideas that are supporting it.

Clustering n Clustering is one way to organize your ideas into groups. Once you have your list of ideas you can put them into "clusters" of related ideas that will eventually become paragraphs. One way to cluster is to ask yourself a few questions about your ideas…

Clustering Questions n n n 1. What phrases are similar or seem to be about the same idea? 2. In what way is each cluster alike? 3. What ideas don't seem to fit anywhere? n n 4. What general word or phrase could be used to represent each cluster? 5. Are there other general words or phrases that would group the items differently?

Clustering Cont’d n Another way to cluster is the spider-web technique shown below it attaches different ideas in a web-like pattern that is a more spatial way of organizing your ideas.

Outlining n Outlining is a type of organizing that identifies a main topic then elaborates on in by arranging words or phrases in an order that makes sense for your writing. This can be done in a formal or informal manner. A formal outline is used in college writing and will require the use of specific symbols, numbers and letters. For this course we will be using an informal type of outline.

Drafting n Once the ideas have been created and organized it is time to utilize the information you have gathered and write your paragraph or essay. It is important that you have identified and utilize the main ideas and supporting ideas that you have developed so that the final draft process in your writing is smooth because you have laid the foundation of your writing in the previous writing activities.

Revising n Revising is making changes in your writing to make it easier to understand for you targeted audience and to verify or change the writing so that it is more organized. This will be done several times in most writing situations.

Revising Cont’d n **Please note that this step is apart from editing your paper. Revising papers is much more than looking for grammar and editing mistakes that is for the next part of the writing process.

Editing n When you are learning the writing process we focus on the process and creating organized concise ideas in your writing. Therefore, the content comes before grammar and mechanics. It is in the last step of the writing process that we look over the paper to correct mechanics and grammar.