The six steps of the writing process 2. Read about the writing process. These are the steps you will practice in this book. > Process writing When we write, we do more than just put words together to make sentences. go through several steps to produce a piece of writing, Good writers Pre-writing STEP ONE: Choose a topic. Before you write, your teacher gives you a specific assignment or some ideas of what to write about. If not, choose your topic yourself. STEP TWO: Gather ideas. When you have a topic, think about what you will write about that topic. STEP THREE: Organize. Decide which of the ideas you want to use and where you want to use them. Choose which idea to talk about first, which to talk about next, and which to talk about last. Drafting STEP FOUR: Write. Write your paragraph or essay from start to finish. Use your notes about your ideas and organization. Reviewing and revising STEP FIVE: Review structure and content. Check what you have written. Read your y to yourself or aloud, perhaps to a friend. Look for places where you can add more information. and check to see if you have any unnecessary information. ‘Ask a classmate to exchange papers with you. Your classmate reads your paper, and you read his or hers. Getting a reader's opinion is a good way to know if your writing is clear and effective. Learning to give opinions about other people's writing helps you to improve your own. You may want to go on to step six now and revise the structure and content of your paper before you proofread it. Rewriting V i ‘STEP SIX: | Revise structure and content. Use your ideas from step five to re-write your text, making improvements to the structure and content. You might need to explain something more clearly, or add more details. You may even need to change your organization so that your paper is more logical. Together, steps five and six can be called editing. Proofread. Read your paper again. This time, check your spelling and grammar and think about the words you have chosen to use. Make final corrections. Check that you have corrected the errors you discovered in steps five and six and make any other changes you want to make. Now your text is finished! Steps five and six can be repeated many times. iain cilia ia fle iReview 3 Complete this chart, summarizing the steps of the writing process. Pre-writing , @ STEPONE: Choose a ... © STEPTWO: Gather ... © STEPTHREE: Decide . Drafting @ STEPFOUR: Write Reviewing and revising @ STEPFIVE: Check .. Rewriting © STEP SIX: May need to .. Steps many times. 4 = INTRODUCTION: PROCESS WRITINGi Pre-Writing: Getting Ready to Write In this unit, you will learn how to ... 1 choose and narrow a topic. = gather ideas. = edit ideas. D_ What is pre-writing? Before you begin writing, you decide what you J 18 J y — are going to write about. Then you plan what = you are going to write. This process is called 5S* oS ipre-writing. ae vie Nw, ~vher wh Lz, Choosing and narrowing a topic D_ How to choose a topic for a paragraph A paragraph is a group of five to ten sentences that give information about a topic Before you write, you must choose a topic for your paragraph. © Choose a topic that isn’t too narrow (limited, brief). A narrow topic will not have enough ideas to write about. The ages of my brothers and sisters is too narrow. You can’t write very much about it © Choose a topic that isn’t too broad (general). A broad topic will have too many ideas for just one paragraph. Most paragraphs are five to ten sentences long. Schools is too general, There are thousands of things you could say about it. A student could narrow this topic by choosing one aspect of schools to discuss. schools map high schools in my country popular school clubs university entrance exams I Choose three topics from this list. Narrow each of the three down to a paragraph topic. Then compare with a partner, holidays ost) b, friends Fake, quit ¢. my country d, dancing 00, Salsa, went ‘ e. cars PRE-WRITING: GETTING READYTOWRITE 52 bet Brainstorming Brainstorming is a way of gathering idea topic. Think ofa storm: thousands of drops of rain, all coming down together. Now imagine thousands of ideas “raining” down onto Your paper! When you brainstorm. write down every ree that comes to you. Don’t worry now ebout reather the ideas are good ot silly, usoful oF Tot You can decide that later. Right now, you are gathering as many ideas as you can. > _ What is brainstorming? about a I\\ You will learn three types of brainstorming in this unit: making a list, freewriting, and mapping. UV Making a list, Write single words, phrases, of sentences that ar connected to your top! Teta student made when brainstorming ideas to write about her topic, “W study in college?” Look at this at should | history learning about the past math (too aifficult, not interesting?) What job do | want later? English for work? Travel? writing? ‘ecience—violoay, chemistry I don't like physics! DPPRDEEL journalism I like reading—lterature? art—drawing, painting, sculpture photography? studying / homework friends / social life dy Work with a partner or small group. Choose one of © one of th you can in five minutes, ese topic List as ma ‘teas # ‘a. teenage fashions e bb. things to do at the beach ¢. driving a motorcycle can in five minutes. “ ideas as you PRE-WRITING: GETTING READY To WRITED_ Freewriting When you freewrite, you write whatever comes into your head about your topic, without stopping. Most freewriting exercises are short—just five or ten minutes. ping, 8 Freewriting helps you practice fluency (writing quickly and easily). When you freewrite, you do not need to worry about accuracy (having correct grammar and spelling). Don't check your dictionary when you freewrite. Don’t stop if you make a mistake. Just keep writing! Here is an example of a student's freewriting: There are too so many subjects to study at university, itis difficult to choose one for my major. I've always made good grades int math, but | don't like it very much. | don't like physical physics or any science very much. Writing —Ive ahways liked writing. Would journalism be a good course to take? Newspapers have pictures, too, so maybe photography would be good. I'n maybe definitely ooking forward to meeting new friends at university. And what about reading? Reading is a part of any course, but literature includes a lot of reading and it probably includes a lot of writing, too. Notice how the writer's ideas jump around. 2 she make: she just crosses 7 it out and continues writing. One thought —a (writing) leads to another (journalism), and then to another (photography). There are go some details that are not exactly about her topic (looking fornard to meeting new friends), but that’s OK in freewriting. You want to get as many ideas on paper as you — = can. You can take out unnecessary words and sentences later. a L ( 4 > Choose one of the narrowed topics you thought of for exercise 1 on page 5. Practice freewriting for five minutes. Remember, do not stop, erase, or go back. Just write as much as you can. PRE-WRITING: GETTING READY TO WRITE 7ar topic in the middl, with ‘or below your topic, and" related. > Mapping To make a map, use a whole shee! circle around it. Then put the nex connect the circles with lines. The of paper, and write YO {idea ina circle abov' Tinos show that the two ideas study in college?” The writer “What should «4 English are connected to favorite ‘The example below shows a map of “ connected favorite subjects to the main idea. Art an subjects to show that they are related: Become a teacher? favorite subjects What should | study? science 5 Choose another narrowed topic you thought of for ex: in five minut are yout ith a iam your map with a partner, Explain how the circles are ercise 1 on page 5. Make a map Jated to > Wnt the best way to brainstorm? thorn is no bost method of brai iN : pd of brainstorm Some i sn have 1 wie cmp sentences Sam wos he quickly and ideas come easily. Some writ es ors prefer m sve the relationship bolween ides the one that works best for 6 Experiment with all th lists because SSCL poause they can ia Ping because they can easily methods, and then chavs? 8 PRE-WRITING: GETTING READY To WrireEditing D_ How to edit After vou have gathered plenty of ideas. you will need to go back and edit them. This is the time to choose which ideas are the most interesting, and which are the most relevant to (important or necessary for) your topic. Of course, vou can still add new ideas if you think of something else while you are re-reading your list* For example, the student writing “What should I study in college?" edited her list like this: history—iearning about the past march thee difficult net intereoting?} Not interesting to me. What job do | want later? Describe more. Englich for work? Travel? writing? Important in many subjects. tderstte piystce! I don't want to study science! Journaliem ke reading—iiterature? ari—draving, painting, sculpture provography? etuajing / homework What about it? frrondetescia te Not related. Nooo To edit freewriting, cross out sentences or parts of sentences that aren't related. You can add more ideas in the margin or add more sentences at the bottom. To edit a map, cross out circles that don't belong, and add new ones if you get more ideas. You might also change the lines you have drawn, Look at the list you made in exercise 3 on page 6, the freewriting you did in exercise 4 on page 7, or the map you made in exercise 5 on page 8. Edit your brainstorming. Show your work to a partner. Explain how you edited your brainstorming. PRE-WRITING: GETTING READYTOWRITE 9oo F many ideas for just one paragraph. Review 7 Complete the crossword puzzle. “Bach paragraph has only one topic. If the topic is too n___, you will not be able to “write enough about it. On the other hand, if the topic is too 2 b__, you will have too After vou choo: topic, you will need to *b___ some ideas to write about in your paragraph. One way to do this is to make a*1__. Another way of brainstorming is Sgn _. After you have written down many ideas, you can go back and decide which ones are the most interesting and the most ® r 7 P__ isa useful way to help you write more writing, vou are working on" { _ to your topic. ily and naturally. In this kind of and not *a Look again at the note about brainstorming at the bottom of page 8. Brainstorm a list of pros (good things) and cons (bad things) about each of the three methods of brainstorming.