Irizarry 1

Sierra Irizarry

Professor C. Pierson

ENC 1101

6 October 2017

Paper 2: Writing Process Description, Analysis, & Revision

Writing comes in a variety of manners specially depending on the type of literature

you are writing. Whether its personal, business or educational, and the process of writing each

varies on the person and type of writing or style that is being written. For the most part, the

process of writing can be broken down into three basic steps that are mutual between all types of

writing: preparing, writing, & revising/editing. The various phases of a writing process such

as planning, drafting, reading, and revising blend together and may not go in that order

(WBW P. 708).

Typically, before you start writing normally you make a plan. Dotting down all your

ideas and thoughts that you would like to be included in your piece of literature. This is normally

where you would pull out evidence and sources to prove your argument or to use as support in

your writing. The planning part of writing can be interchangeable with incubation the actual

thinking process a short period of incubation was followed by a period of intense and highly

concentrated planning when Murray realized the direction he wanted the article to take

(Berkenkotter pg. 137). Personally, when I write I skip the planning step and just start writing

right away, I spend approximatively twenty minutes in the incubation phase thinking about what

Im going to write depending on the topic and evidence given to support or argue said topic, and

shortly after I begin to write.

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After planning comes the actual writing process itself, when I write Im used to writing

essays for school. Whether it be argumentative, persuasive, a narrator or analytical. I set the

paper up into five paragraphs; The introduction, three body paragraphs, and the conclusion. The

body paragraphs usually are based off the prompt and the topic assigned. I normally would pick

three main points from the passage that came with the prompt along with quotes to prove the

points I will be discussing in my body paragraphs to support or argue the claim that is being

made. However, now taking this ENC 1101 class the writing structure for my papers have

change drastically. When writing now there is now passage that you base your writing off of. Of

course, like any writing there is a prompt/topic and a rubric to follow but you are mostly pulling

evidence and support from outside sources you get yourself from the online school library,

textbook or in the case of the autoethnography personal opinions or experiences. The

autoethnography was the most diverse piece of writing Ive written. It being personal and a self-

reflection I was not use to especially since Im so used to writing in such a structured way.

Timed, 40 minutes must be five paragraphs, with three points to make and 2-3 pieces of evidence

for each point followed by commentary all written in a quiet classroom setting. It gave you no

time to think or give you the freedom or comfort in writing in a way you prefer. Myself as a

writer takes me a long time to be able to really sit down concentrate and get my piece of work

done. I get distracted really easy, English has always been my hardest subject specially when it

comes to writing essays because I never know where to begin and what to say to make the essay

flow smoothly. So, I normally try to write as much as I can and then end up watching T.V. or on

FaceTime and give up. Then Ill try again the next day to add on and fall into distractions again

and normally the due date of the paper is when I really buckle down whether its the night before

the due date because its due in the morning or if its late at night a few hours before it must be
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turned in. Its not that I dont have the time to write the paper I just dont have the motivation

within me, funny because youd think if its for a grade that would-be motivation enough. I write

best when I have a friend over if Im alone I want to fiddle with my phone, eat, clean do anything

to avoid the paper. But if I have a friend here with me and I see them working on homework too

it helps me get to work with my own, especially if they yell at me to do my homework or

threaten to take my phone from me. Im extrinsically motivated when it comes to homework,

Extrinsic motivation deals with motivations that are outside of your passions, and personal self-

esteem (Ryan), oppose to intrinsically motivated Intrinsic motivation is the opposite. You

get paid for doing what you truly enjoy doing (Ryan). I need clear deadlines and encouragement

from other people as motivation. And I get to spend time with my friends and also do homework

when Im writing next to them. I cant just work hard because something in myself motivates me

to do so like Intrinsically motivated people. As well as my friends, lots of music helps but

nothing too upbeat because then I want to dance or sing and that becomes a whole other

distraction I have to worry about.

The actual writing process is the challenge for me but the editing and revising part is

easier. Which is the last part to the three-part writing process, editing and revising. Although the

two share similarities they are two very different things. When revising you must look at the

piece of writing as a whole in a big picture concept. While revising you may perform bigger

operations like reorganizing, rewriting, or even deleting a paragraph or an entire section of the

document (Richardson, 2017). Editing on the other hand is a smaller picture its the last-minute

fixes to minor errors in details. When editing you go through sentence by sentence to rephrase a

sentence, swap out words, or add, remove, or change punition (Richardson, 2017). When its

time for me to revise and edit my paper I use the spelling and grammar check first and once it
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goes through and fixes any errors, I go through and read my paper out loud to see if I wrote

things that didnt quite make sense, or to make sure I didnt go off topic anywhere. Sometimes

when Im talking to someone and typing I start to type what Im saying so I have to go through

my paper and make sure I didnt do that as well.

The writing process is the series of actions taken by writers to produce a finished work.

Writers, educators, and theorists have defined the writing process in many different ways, but it

generally involves prewriting tasks, writing tasks, and post-writing tasks. More specifically,

these tasks include planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing, in approximately that

order (Dziak, 2016) may work for some people but it may also be to structure for others. It

obviously is an effective process if its being taught to university students and written into

textbooks, but for writers with abstract thoughts or work ethic processes this writing process may

not work for them. For me, personally sticking to this writing process might be more beneficial

to my writing, if I spent more time in the incubation phase and planning maybe I wont have

writers block during the actual writing process itself because I will already have my thoughts

planned out and laid out for me to know what I want to say, as well as pulling quotes or citations

ahead of time that can be used in my writing. What you believe about writing directly impacts

what you do or are willing to do (WAW p.5) or maybe the writers block comes from being

forced into having to write with the topic picked for me, something not of my interest. Oppose to

for example, poetry theres no rules, regulations or constraints in poetry. You are free to write

what you want, how you want to, and in any form of way you would like.

Citation Page
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Berkenkotter C. (1983). Decisions and revisions: The planning strategies of a publishing writer.

In E. Wardle and D. Downs (eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp. 830-

846). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins

Dziak, M. (2016). Writing Process (planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing). Salem

Press Encyclopedia

Murray, D. Process: How Are Texts Composed? In E. Wardle and D. Downs (eds.). Writing

about Writing: A college reader (p. 708). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins

Richardson, Adele. Revision. UCF Writes Department of Writing and Rhetoric, Fountainhead

Press, 2017, p. 136

Ryan, J. (n.d.). The Difference Between Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation. Retrieved October

12, 2017, from

http://www.academia.edu/1323999/The_Difference_Between_Extrinsic_and_Intrinsic_M

otivation

Wardle and D. Downs (eds.). Writing about Writing: A college reader (pp. 5). Boston:

Bedford/St. Martins