Whenever I have to write an assignment for school I never know where to start. Until I was well into my first semester of college, the writing process, in general, was very stressful for me. I never knew what to write my essays about and I would leave them until the night before to start, and I would never proofread them.
Once I actually understood what the writing process was though, I finally began to become less scared of it. For some reason, I never wanted to reread my writing because I was embarrassed to even read over my own mistakes. Although, my first semester in college forced me to think differently regarding the whole process because I had to write long papers that were worth a large portion of my grade.
The very first thing I do when I write is make an outline. Outlines are helpful because they allow me to plan my thesis and my main points out in an organized way. In a lot of ways, a good outline is like a roadmap that can guide you through what your essay will eventually become. Now, I make an outline for almost every paper that I have to write. Outlines are also helpful because it's a way in which you can avoid just throwing something together without thinking about it.
Next, I like to write a first draft. This first draft is usually horrendous. I just write all my thoughts about whatever topic I'm writing about down in an order that seems to flow. This is a good method for me because when I go back and reread it I can take out details that take away from the piece as a whole and organize my thoughts in a way that flow better as a whole.
When all my thoughts are written it is easy to reword and make them piece together better. After writing an awful first draft, I go back and I fix the wording of anything that seems awkward and take out things that do not go with the topic that I may have included. I also like to do a quick grammar and spelling check at this point, just to clean up any glaring mistakes.
Usually, I have my mom or a peer read over my writing just to have a second eye look because I'm not perfect and cannot spot every mistake I make. This step is crucial for me because I absolutely hate reading over things that I have written that may have errors in them. Having someone else take a look to correct my work takes pressure off me in a sense.
After this, I fix anything that was corrected by my peer and reread my piece one more time. This allows me to make sure what I wanted to write about comes through the words of the piece without going off on a tangent.
The writing process is definitely not as stressful for me anymore because I have found my own method of how I like to approach essays and writing anything in general. Without the writing process, your words can get jumbled and out of place in some situations. For bigger assignments, the process is very much necessary for writing because if you just "wing it," your writing may sound messy.
I should note that everyone's writing process is different, and what may work for some, may not work for others. The point of this article though is to say that you should find a process that works for you because your writing will greatly improve if you do. Especially writing a first draft, that is something that I never did before going to college and I now question why I didn't write first drafts in the past.
Starting points in writing are important, if you just write something all at once it may not be the same quality as something you plan writing.
