13 - The Writing Process: From Notes to Paragraphs

Summary

Introduction

In the previous chapters we have already focused on many of the prewriting activities necessary for writing an essay assignment. We have discussed the work plan and taking notes; evaluation of your information and ensuring your information is relevant to the topic. In this chapter and the next chapter we are going to focus on the main activities involved in the actual writing process including the prewriting activities, drafting, rewriting, organisation and structure, final editing and proofreading. We hope by giving you some pointers and showing the various techniques you will be better equipped to face this task and feel less anxious about writing an essay assignment.

Writing is not an easy process even for experienced writers. To write well you constantly need to reshape, refine, and rewrite. Inexperienced writers often write poorly because they do not realise that writing is not a linear process but requires constant reworking and revision of their initial ideas. In other words it is an iterative process.

Prewriting

Prewriting activities are the processes you go through before you even begin writing. Prewriting activities give us a better idea of what we want to communicate, how we are going to say it and why we want to communicate it to a reader. In writing you need to first identify your audience and your purpose. These are both important prewriting activities that you need to do before you can begin writing.

Some of the important questions you need to ask yourself before beginning are:

• • Who are your readers?

• • What do they expect?

• • What do they know about the subject?

• • What special terms or concepts might you use that will have to be explained to your readers?

• • What is the purpose of your writing?

Time spent in prewriting activities will not be wasted because these help you to make sure that you answer the assignment question, and are aware of your purpose and audience.

Lecturer as an audience

When you write an academic assignment it is a particular situation with particular requirements that have to be met. Although you know that the lecturer reading and evaluating your assignments is knowledgeable about the topic, you have to write as if he or she knows nothing about the topic.