Section Title

A Process for Writing

Many writers have found surprise and inspiration in the following text, which I distribute in writing courses at Cornell. Peruse it in the tradition of the found poem: make use of what is useful, bypass what is not. Note the title's indefinite article; what follows does not claim to be the only or the best process you can use. It has been immensely transformative, though, for many who have needed a new approach to finding the words for what they want to say.

--Mary Gilliland

One of the most difficult times in the writing of a paper is the beginning. It is sometimes quite discouraging to sit at a desk with a pen and a sheet of blank paper and know that there are many hours ahead of head-scratching and hard thinking, and that somehow out of all this effort a paper will come. But this difficult time can be made considerably easier if the writing of a paper is thought of as a process that can be broken down into a number of separate steps. Then the task is not so immense, and you can know at any time just which step you are taking and just where you are going next. What follows is a description of one such process. This is not the only process for writing an essay, and none of the steps is absolutely necessary, but it is a process that has worked for many writers who have had difficulty getting started.

STEP ONE: Dumping the drawer

The first step in the process of writing is to get everything you think about your topic out on a piece of paper. It is a very messy process; it's like dumping the contents of a desk drawer out on the top of the desk. Order, organization, tidiness, and carefulness are ignored. At this point, write out anything that appears in the least way relevant to your topic on a sheet or two of paper. Write names, words describing what you will write about, brief arguments in favor or against something, examples, general statements, details, numbers, colors – everything. Here it is better to put in even questionable items, since anything can be omitted in later stages. If your piece of paper looks neat and orderly after you have finished this step, you probably haven't thought about this enough. Keep going until it looks messy.

STEP TWO: Recognizing relationships

In this step you will be finding connections between some of the things on your first page of random notes. The relationships to look for are those which are inherent in your topic; those which represent what is really there are what you will write about. There may be cause and effect relationships; some items may belong to the same or parallel categories. You may want to group a category with an example of that category. As you are doing this, you will probably get some more ideas about what you want on your first sheet of notes. Add them. At the same time you may feel that some items, words, or examples are not appropriate, and that you want them taken off. That page is probably so messy now that you need to copy from it the areas and items you have organized. This time it is appropriate to be a little neater, because you'll be working from this second sheet as you organize your paper. Save the old sheet; maybe you'll want to go back to it again.

STEP THREE: Preparing the material for your reader

Working from your second sheet of notes, build up a chart of what you will present to your audience. This doesn't have to be an outline, but can be any sort of chart or list that you feel comfortable with. This should indicate the order of the essay, and should include all the information, words, examples, arguments, etc. that you want in the paper.

Check back: Now go back and review what you have done. Are there other things suggested by changes you made? What focus has this material suggested? What are the most interesting parts? Can you think of more details or examples?

STEP FOUR: Writing the first draft

If you work well at a keyboard, plug in. If you plan to print out, triple space and leave fairly wide margins for future corrections and inserts. If you are more at home working with a pen, leave sufficient space between lines for a lot of inverting and correcting. Following the chart you have prepared, begin to write, not at the beginning but at the most interesting part. If you begin at the most interesting part, your writing will be better and clearer. What you write will suggest what sorts of things have come before and what sorts of things should come later. This will usually make writing those parts considerably easier. It is usually a good idea to postpone writing the first and last paragraphs until the rest of the paper has been written, perhaps even revised. In this first draft, if you find that you are leaving your chart, that you are changing the order of presentation or even some of the content, go right ahead! That probably indicates that you have learned something new about your topic simply through the process of writing about it. That chart is just there to help you; it is not a straitjacket. Don't hesitate to experiment in this first draft. You may come up with some excellent ideas that weren't available to you before writing.

STEP FIVE: Outlining the first draft

Make an outline of the first draft – not of what you thought or felt you did, but of exactly what you wrote. Look over the outline. That's now a bird's eye view of your paper. This is a good place to make general changes in organization. Make the changes first in this outline, and then on your draft. Check back: Again, go back and review what you have done. Have you left out any important points or examples that you intended to include? Consider them again. Have you changed your emphasis? That may affect your introduction or your concluding paragraph. Use this step to make minor changes. At this point you can use and throw away your first page of notes, the second page of notes, and the chart you prepared to present material to your reader. They have served their purpose and are no longer necessary.

STEP SIX: Rewriting

Now is the time for care.You allowed yourself to be messy in the first step, to change directions and add new things, to experiment, and to try new directions, all because you would eventually come to the important step of rewriting.

Read your draft carefully, putting yourself in the place of your reader.

Locate and identify the parts of the paper you like the best. Locate the parts that you feel uneasy with or think need changing. When you make changes, don't allow changes of the poorer parts to affect the good parts.

Rewrite a section at a time, trying to get exactly the right words and trying to handle the information so that it is available to the reader just when you want it to be. Sometimes rewriting may make the text appear choppy and disjointed, so you will have to concentrate on making even transitions.

After the final version has been written, read it aloud to catch any minor mistakes or absurdities. Check spelling and punctuation.

If you have the time, set this version aside for several days before you come back to it again for final adjustments. Make it just what you want.

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