The Three-step Writing Process
Planning Analyze Study your purpose, lay out your writing schedule, and then profile your audience. Writing Organize Define your main idea, limit the scope, group your points, and choose the direct or indirect approach Completing Revise Evaluate content and review readability, editing, and rewriting for conciseness and clarity.
Investigate Gather information through formal or informal research methods.
Compose Control your style through level formality and conversational tone. Choose your words carefully so that you can create effective sentences and paragraphs.
Produce Use effective design elements and suitable delivery methods. Proofread Review for errors in layout, spelling, and mechanics.
Adapt Choose the right channel and medium; then establish a good relationship with your audience.
Define the main idea
theme
a statement about the
topic that explains your purpose for writing.
Explore ideas for writing topics
To initiate thinking and
generate possible writing topics
Examples of prewriting techniques & strategies
Journalistic approach Question-and-answer chain
approach Free-writing Brainstorming
Prewriting techniques
Journalistic approach
1 2
3
4 5
ask six questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
Journalistic approach
Q 1 Who is involved?: Who are the participants? Who is affected? Who are the primary actors? Who are the secondary actors?
Journalistic approach
Q2 What?:
What is the topic? What is the significance of the topic? What is the basic problem? What are the issues? What happened and what were the results?
Journalistic approach
Q3 Where?:
Where does the activity take place? Where does the problem or issue have
its source? At what place is the cause or effect of the problem most visible?
Journalistic approach
Q4 When?: When is the issue most apparent? (past? present? future?) When did the issue or problem develop? What historical forces helped shape the problem or issue and at what point in time will the problem or issue culminate in a crisis? When is action needed to address the issue or problem?
Journalistic approach
Q5 Why?:
Why did the issue or problem arise?
Why is it (your topic) an issue or
problem at all? Why did the issue or problem develop in the way that it did?
Journalistic approach
Q6 How?: How did it happen? How is the issue or problem significant? How can it be addressed? How does it affect the participants? How can the issue or problem be resolved?
Prewriting Techniques
Question-and-answer chain approach the audiences perspective and ask questions such as
What is the audiences main question? What do they need to know? Any additional questions?
Prewriting strategies
1 Free-writing 2 Brainstorming
Freewriting
Two types of freewriting: 1 Unfocused You either sit down at the keyboard or grab a pencil and piece of paper and begin writing whatever comes to mind.
Free-writing
2 Focused Focused free-writing is similar, but instead of writing about anything, try to stay focused on the topic you are to write about.
Write down everything that comes to mind on
the topic, without stopping to consider whether an idea is worthwhile.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming means using a variety of
methods to stimulate your thought process.
just jot down ideas that seem related
to your topic.
eg Write some about Winnie Hau
Appearance
Personality
Winnie Hau
Religion
Education background
Organizing your ideas
2 Using an outline a working outline might be only an informal list of topics and subtopics which you are thinking of covering in your paper
three levels of ideas the main points,
subpoints, and supporting details, illustrations and evidence
Example
Theme
Main Point
Main Point
Main Point
Evidence
Supporting Details
Evidence
Supporting Details
The MLA Handbook suggests the
following "descending parts of an outline":
Example of an outline
Organizational approaches Direct approach The main idea comes first, Followed by the evidence.
Organizational approaches Indirect approach The evidence comes first, and the main idea comes later.
Composing your message
Drafting
A draft is a work in progress.
what you want to communicate
Composing your message Writing style controlling your style and tone selecting the best words creating effective sentences developing coherent paragraphs
Composing your message
Drafting
A draft is a work in progress.
what you want to communicate
Completing business messages
make sure your message matches the
purpose
make sure your message projects a
good image of yourself.
Completing business messages
revise,
produce,
proofread and
evaluate what you have written
Completing business messages
make sure your message matches the
purpose
make sure your message projects a
good image of yourself.
Revising the message
1 - content - organization - flow
2 - style - readability 3 - mechanics - format
Proofreading the message
Leave plenty of time to proofread. If
you can, put your essay aside for a few days, and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes.
make sure everything is 100% right.
Some proofreading tips:
Try reading your essay backwards (last
sentence first) to catch fragments or other glaring errors.
Have another pair of eyes read it as well to catch errors in spelling and grammar.
Some proofreading tips:
Look for Writing Errors:
Typing errors
Misspelled words
Grammatical errors Punctuation mistakes
Some proofreading tips:
Look for Missing Elements:
Missing text sections
Missing exhibits (drawings, tables,
photographs, charts graphs etc Missing source notes, reference items
Some proofreading tips:
Look for Design and Formatting Mistakes:
Incorrect or inconsistent font selections Column sizing, spacing and alignment Margins Special characters Clumsy line and page breaks Page numbers Page headers and footers