Today we'll branch out a little from speaking to writing. It's likely you'll have to do both at some time in your life, even if you only write an email to request customer service help from a company, or a short letter to accompany your resume. Maybe you're one of the people who consider themselves skilled with words. Maybe you're completely at a loss for a starting place. Whatever your comfort level, the systematic approach is best.
The time-honored formula for successful writing includes planning the piece, getting something written to work with, shaping the writing to your goal, and cleaning up grammar, spelling and punctuation. It is usually advisable to handle these items in this order. The steps are known respectively as Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, and Editing. You can remember this by using a little acronym I chose, PaDRE.
Prewriting involves deciding on the ideas that you want to include in your writing. You may use such tools as mindmapping or brainstorming to decide these items. You may just scratch out a few bullet points on scrap paper, or make a full outline.
Once you know what you want to write about, you begin. Go start to finish, and get something written or typed out, creating your draft. Do not stop to rework sections, or correct your writing at this point.
When the draft is done it will trigger more ideas, and you may see that you want to add, subtract, and move things quite a bit. That's not a sign of deficiency, it is how things get done. You refine your ideas and their expression at this stage, the revision.
If you are certain that you have arranged your writing the way you want it is time to proofread. Check out spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Remember that using a word processing program is no substitute for a thorough understanding of English and a complete check of your work.
You may feel you are good at turning a phrase, or cranking out pages of expressive copy, but this systematic method will give you a much stronger handle on your final output. Try it, you'll even impress yourself!
The time-honored formula for successful writing includes planning the piece, getting something written to work with, shaping the writing to your goal, and cleaning up grammar, spelling and punctuation. It is usually advisable to handle these items in this order. The steps are known respectively as Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, and Editing. You can remember this by using a little acronym I chose, PaDRE.
Prewriting involves deciding on the ideas that you want to include in your writing. You may use such tools as mindmapping or brainstorming to decide these items. You may just scratch out a few bullet points on scrap paper, or make a full outline.
Once you know what you want to write about, you begin. Go start to finish, and get something written or typed out, creating your draft. Do not stop to rework sections, or correct your writing at this point.
When the draft is done it will trigger more ideas, and you may see that you want to add, subtract, and move things quite a bit. That's not a sign of deficiency, it is how things get done. You refine your ideas and their expression at this stage, the revision.
If you are certain that you have arranged your writing the way you want it is time to proofread. Check out spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Remember that using a word processing program is no substitute for a thorough understanding of English and a complete check of your work.
You may feel you are good at turning a phrase, or cranking out pages of expressive copy, but this systematic method will give you a much stronger handle on your final output. Try it, you'll even impress yourself!
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