Compiled by: Ms.
Sana Mumtaz
1
Self-Reflection
Before you begin writing, ask yourself:
Why are you writing?
Who are you writing for?
What are your reader's expectations from you?
What type of writing are you going to do?
What difficulties are you going to face while writing?
What is your main point?
The Writing Process | 5 Steps
Good academic writing requires effective planning, drafting, and revision.
The writing process looks different for everyone, but there are five basic steps that will help
you structure your time when writing any kind of text.
Step 1: Prewriting
Step 2: Planning and outlining
Step 3: Drafting
Step 4: Redrafting and revising
Step 5: Editing and proofreading
Step 1: Prewriting
Before you start writing, you need to decide exactly what you’ll write about and do the
necessary research.
Coming up with a topic
If you have to come up with your own topic for an assignment, think of what you’ve covered
in class— is there a particular area that intrigued, interested, or even confused you? Topics
that left you with additional questions are perfect, as these are questions you can explore in
your writing.
The scope depends on what type of text you’re writing—for example, an essay or a research
paper will be less in-depth than a dissertation topic. Don’t pick anything too ambitious to
cover within the word count, or too limited for you to find much to say. Narrow down your
idea to a specific argument or question.
Doing the research
Once you know your topic, it’s time to search for relevant sources and gather the information
you need. This process varies according to your field of study and the scope of the
assignment. It might involve:
Searching for primary and secondary sources.
Reading the relevant texts closely.
Collecting data using relevant research methods (e.g. experiments, interviews or surveys).
From a writing perspective, the important thing is to take plenty of notes while you do the
research. Keep track of the titles, authors, publication dates, and relevant quotations from
your sources; the data you gathered; and your initial analysis or interpretation of the
questions you’re addressing.
Compiled by: Ms. Sana Mumtaz
2
Step 2: Planning and outlining
Especially in academic writing, it’s important to use a logical structure to convey information
effectively. It’s far better to plan this out in advance than to try to work out your structure
once you’ve already begun writing.
Creating an essay outline is a useful way to plan out your structure before you start writing.
This should help you work out the main ideas you want to focus on and how you’ll organize
them. The outline doesn’t have to be final—it’s okay if your structure changes throughout the
writing process. Use bullet points or numbering to make your structure clear at a glance.
Even for a short text that won’t use headings, it’s useful to summarize what you’ll discuss in
each paragraph.
Step 3: Writing a first draft
Once you have a clear idea of your structure, it’s time to produce a full first draft. This
process can be quite non-linear. For example, it’s reasonable to begin writing with the main
body of the text, saving the introduction for later once you have a clearer idea of the text
you’re introducing.
To give structure to your writing, use your outline as a framework. Make sure that each
paragraph has a clear central focus that relates to your overall argument. When you move
onto a different topic, start a new paragraph. Use appropriate transition words and phrases
to show the connections between your ideas. The goal at this stage is to get a draft
completed, not to make everything perfect as you go along. Once you have a full draft in
front of you, you’ll have a clearer idea of where improvement is needed.
Step 4: Redrafting and revising
Now it’s time to look critically at your first draft and find potential areas for improvement.
Redrafting means substantially adding or removing content, while revising involves making
changes to structure and reformulating arguments.
Evaluating the first draft
It can be difficult to look objectively at your own writing. Your perspective might be positively
or negatively biased—especially if you try to assess your work shortly after finishing it. It’s
best to leave your work alone for at least a day or two after completing the first draft. Come
back after a break to evaluate it with fresh eyes; you’ll spot things you wouldn’t have
otherwise.
When evaluating your writing at this stage, you’re mainly looking for larger issues such as
changes to your arguments or structure. Starting with bigger concerns saves you
time—there’s no point perfecting the grammar of something you end up cutting out anyway.
Right now, you’re looking for:
Arguments that are unclear or illogical.
Areas where information would be better presented in a different order.
Passages where additional information or explanation is needed.
Passages that are irrelevant to your overall argument.
Compiled by: Ms. Sana Mumtaz
3
Redrafting and revising
Once you’ve decided where changes are needed, make the big changes first. Depending on
what your text needs, this step might involve:
Making changes to your overall argument.
Reordering the text.
Cutting parts of the text.
Adding new text.
You can go back and forth between writing, redrafting and revising several times until you
have a final draft that you’re happy with.
Step 5: Editing and proofreading
Editing focuses on local concerns like clarity and sentence structure. Proofreading involves
reading the text closely to remove typos and ensure stylistic consistency.
Editing for grammar and clarity
When editing, you want to ensure your text is clear, concise, and grammatically correct.
You’re looking out for:
Grammatical errors.
Ambiguous phrasings.
Redundancy and repetition.
In your initial draft, it’s common to end up with a lot of sentences that are poorly formulated.
Look critically at where your meaning could be conveyed in a more effective way or in fewer
words, and watch out for common sentence structure mistakes like run-on sentences and
sentence fragments.
Proofreading for stylistic consistency
There are several issues in academic writing where you can choose between multiple
different standards. For example:
Whether you use the serial comma.
Whether you use American or British spellings and punctuation (you can use a punctuation
checker for this).
Where you use numerals vs. words for numbers.
How you capitalize your titles and headings.
Unless you’re given specific guidance on these issues, it’s your choice which standards you
follow. The important thing is to consistently follow one standard for each issue. For
example, don’t use a mixture of American and British spellings in your paper.
Additionally, you will probably be provided with specific guidelines for issues related to
format (how your text is presented on the page) and citations (how you acknowledge your
sources). Always follow these instructions carefully.