The Writing Process:
Pre-writing, Writing and
Re-writing
The Writing Process
To produce successful communication, approach writing as a process
PREWRITE:
Must HAVE something to say
Generate info., consider audience’s needs, choose comm. channel
WRITE:
After gathering data & determining objectives, next step: state them
Draft your document: organize & format
RE-WRITE:
Final & essential step: re-write your draft
Revise your rough document
All three parts may occur simultaneously
You may visit any, at various times while drafting
The Writing Process
PRE-WRITING
Plan your communication, know where you’re going in your
correspondence
Accomplish these objectives:
Examining the Purpose
Determining Goals
Considering Audience
Deciding what action you want your audience to perform
Gathering Data
Determining the most effective Communication Channel
PRE-WRITING: EXAMINE YOUR
PURPOSE
Determine your motivation:
EXTERNAL MOTIVATION
Someone else has requested the correspondence
For example, you’ve been asked to write an email to suggest a
solution to a current prob.
INTERNAL MOTIVATION
Writing on your own accord
For example, you need info. to perform your work more
effectively
PRE-WRITING: DETERMINE YOUR
GOALS
Determine your goals in the correspondence or presentation
Determines tone and scope of details
Failure to access goals causes comm. breakdowns
What are you communicating for:
Communicating to Persuade
to persuade your audience to accept your point-of-view
to sell a product/service
Communicating to Instruct
Instruct an audience by directing actions
plays an imp. role in technical comm.
creating a how-to YouTube video/ written instructions
PRE-WRITING: DETERMINE YOUR
GOALS
Determine your goals in the correspondence or presentation
What are you communicating for:
Communicating to Inform
Merely written to inform
Inform an audience of facts, concerns, questions you might have
Communicating to Build Trust
Don’t merely “dump data”, build trust and rapport
Adopt a positive tone e.g., “You’ve done a great job reporting your findings”, “Thanks for the
info.”
PRE-WRITING: CONSIDER YOUR
AUDIENCE
What & How of Writing: determined by audience
Upward: to management, executives,
Downward: under-command
Horizontal: co-workers, peers
High-tech audience (expert in your field)
Low-tech (some knowledge about your field)
A lay audience (people outside of your field)
Multicultural audience
PRE-WRITING: GATHERING DATA
Numerous ways to gather data
Five W-Questions
Mind Mapping
Brainstorming
Listing your gathered data:
Traditional Outlining
Visual Outlining by Creating Chart:
Flow Charts
Organizational Charts
PRE-WRITING TECHNIQUES FOR
GATHERING DATA
Five W-Questions aka Reporter’s
Questions
ensures completeness
Esp. suitable for writing inquiry-
letters
PRE-WRITING TECHNIQUES FOR
GATHERING DATA
Mind-Mapping
clusters similar ideas
blends logic and creativity
allows you to look at your topic from
multiple perspectives
PRE-WRITING TECHNIQUES FOR
GATHERING DATA
Brainstorming
Randomly write all data related to
the given topic
can be performed both individually
or in a group
In a group, all members randomly
suggest ideas (brainstorm) and then
list them
esp. valuable for team projects
WRITING PROCESS: ACTIVITY
PRE-WRITING: LISTING/ OUTLINING
List or Outline generated ideas
Random ideas generated
before, are categorized into
sub-parts
Traditional Outlining
allows you to break the topic
into major and minor
components
PRE-WRITING: LISTING/ OUTLINING
Creating Charts
Organizational Charts
graphic allows you to see overall
organization of the document
mostly used in establishing
hierarchies
Flow Charts
another visual technique to
organize content chronologically
esp. used in how-to instructions
PRE-WRITING: DETERMINING
COMMUNICATION CHANNEL
Last step: deciding the communication channel best-suited for your message
WRITING
Writing the draft = Packaging your data
Allows your reader to follow your train of thought
Requires thoughtful Organization and Formatting
ORGANIZATION
Elaborates all the generated key ideas on paper
Clear organization facilitates understanding and retention
May influence audience’s perception of speaker’s credibility
WRITING: PATTERNS OF ORGANIZATION
PATTERNS OF ORGANIZATION
Chronological Order: based upon time, reviews occurrences in sequence
Use chronology to document time, steps in a process/instruction
Spatial Order: describes what you see, as it appears in space, such as, left to
right, top to bottom, inside to outside, clockwise, by direction (North, East, West
South)
e.g., describing parts of machine or plot of ground
Causal Order: cause-effect terms
Description of present causes to prediction of future effects
Description of current effects caused by past events
WRITING: PATTERNS OF
ORGANIZATION
Experiential Order: describing things by sharing your own personal story
(autobiographical accounts), or highlighting your own personal opinions
Not suitable for technical writing
Topical Order: no specific pattern, arrange them by topic
Govt. sys of Pakistan topically divided into 3 sub-topics, legislative branch, judicial
branch, executive branch
Process Order: describes the process of something, how things happen?
describing steps of some operation in its natural order
Problem/ Solution Order: Organizes text by first stating the problem, and then in
next paragraph, providing with the solution
WRITING: PATTERNS OF
ORGANIZATION
Known-Unknown Order: describing new things by associating them with the things
that your readers may already know
Comparison & Contrast Order: organize text by comparison/contrast
Compare similarities, Contrast differences
Ascending-Descending Importance Orders: state points in order of increasing or
decreasing importance
Ascending order: starting with least imp. point to most imp. point
Descending order: starting with most imp. point to least imp. Ones
Question-Answer Order: anticipate readers’ questions, list them, answer one by one
WRITING: PATTERNS OF ORGANIZATION Activity:
Determine the Pattern/Mode of Organization of the given texts:
WRITING: FORMATTING
In addition to organizing your ideas, also consider how your text
looks on screen or page
Massive wall of words: reader may file your document for future
readings
Break-up monotonous-looking text
Highlight key points
Follow the prescribed formatting style (if any)
REWRITING
PROOFREADING may seem subsidiary, but it’s absolutely imp.
A misplaced decimal point resulted in one company’s paying $120,000 in taxes on a piece of
industrial equipment, instead of $1,200
Proofread the fol.
Grammatical errors, spelling mistakes
These errors downplay your overall efforts
Repetitive Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives
Add monotonous in your expression, replace them with context-
friendly synonyms
Word-limit
Always good to follow rules, if given
REWRITING
Table 2.4 shows the imp. of proofreading:
REWRITING
Revision always required to ensure usability and
correctness
Usability Testing
Retrievability: Can reader find specific info quickly and
easily?
Readability: Can reader read & comprehend info quickly
and easily?
Accuracy: Is info. complete and correct?
Retention:
Does document present info. which is easy to
remember?
REWRITING
REWRITING
WRITING PROCESS CHECKLIST