My Writing Process

There a thousand and one ways to write a paper. Some people write a paper after countless hours of prepping. Some people write a paper and then spend hours deleting, revising and rewriting. Finally, some people write their papers the night before its due or in the UA Library on a Thursday morning before class.

climbtreez "The Procrastinator" 01/06/2007 via deviantart.com Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License

All these different ways of writing a paper can be boiled down to four main categories:

1. Heavy Planners- people who plan their papers extensively

2. Heavy Revisers- people who revise their papers obsessively

3. Sequential Composers- people who find a happy medium of planning and revising

4. Procrastinators- people who write their papers while riding a high from red bull the night before
 the paper is due

 
My writing requires a lot of revising simply because I never know exactly what I want to say until I put the pen to the paper. The ideas that flow from there are ideas I modify, revise and sometimes simply delete throughout various drafts.

McPhee, Nic "2008-01-26 (Editing a paper) - 31" 01/26/2008 via Flickr.com Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 License

This means I use the strategy of a heavy reviser. I constantly revise my paper; adding, deleting and tweaking various words. All of this revising to get across my point through my paper. This approach thus far has seemed to be working for me. Through my own revising and through my peers revising my paper, the "Heavy Revisers" approach has allowed me to write coherent papers driven by my points.


There are obvious strengths and weaknesses to the "Heavy Revisers" approach.
Some strengths are:

• Limited time experiencing writers block
• A rough draft takes hours not days
• Puts your ideas on paper right away so no forgetting that brilliant thing you just thought of

Some weaknesses are:

• Back loading the time put into the paper
• Spend a lot of time trying to understand your rough draft and your points
• Deleting a majority of the paper by the end of the revising

Although I am a staunch supporter of the "Heavy Revisers" approach to writing, I think it would be beneficial for me to try another approach. For instance, the "Heavy Planner" approach is one I have tried before and great success with. But being a procrastinator at heart, front loading my writing schedule for a paper typically isn't a good fit. As I write this now, I am using the "Sequential Composer" approach and enjoying it.

I think it is good to try different approaches to writing simply because it expands how one thinks about his or her writing. What approach to writing do you take?


Edit:

I wrote comments on Cynthia and Scott's post about their writing process. Like most outgoing high school students, they are both procrastinators. They are procrastinators for different reasons. Scott is a procrastinator because he feels he is not good at writing and Cynthia is a procrastinator simply because that is how she has always written papers. Reading their posts made me realize that a majority of us are most likely procrastinators when we write. Which in turn made me realize that this class is going to be a wake up call for all of us. This is not high school, it's college. Average work is not going to earn an A or a B anymore.  Exceptional work will earn you an A, good work will earn you a B, and average work will earn you a C. After this realization, I felt slightly overwhelmed. I'm feeling this way because I do not know how my work will stack up to the college standard; I don't know if my work will ever meet it. However what makes me feel better, is that with the right mindset and dedication to my writing I feel that I will be able to meet the college standard.

Reading their posts I saw that my writing process reflected more of a procrastinator than a heavy reviser. I write a rough draft immediately but I wait as long as possible to revise it.  This puts me under a lot of pressure to complete the assignment by the due date. I am not completely mirroring either of their processes but I am procrastinating.

I enjoy writing because I want to communicate.  I find it hard to use language as effectively as I want to. Putting an abstract thought or idea into coherent language so that the audience can follow is something I struggle with. I enjoy the process though and this class will continue to challenge my writing.