The Writing Process:

An Overview

Eng. 201
Miss Nadia Al Saheb
 Warm-Up Writing
Task:
Create something with the
lump of clay on your desk.
When you are finished, take 5
minutes to write about what
you created and why.
 Pre-Writing Techniques
How do you organize your ideas when
you are preparing to write?
Free Writing
Questioning
Listing
Outlining
Clustering/Mapping
 Free Writing
“Free Writing” is like pouring all of your
thoughts onto paper.
Don’t take your pen off the page; keep
writing for the entire time.
If you don’t know what to write, write “I
don’t know what to write” until you do.
Don’t try to sort “good” and “bad” ideas.
Don’t worry about spelling and grammar.
 Example of Free Writing
Topic: Describe the most beautiful place you’ve seen.
I remember climbing to the top of mountain in our
village last autumn, the leaves were on the floor
red and wonderful, like an ocean of gold red
leaving me breathless with its depth. Stretching
out for miles and miles it was all I could see and
suddenly the grime and sorrow of my village was
drowned with beauty, God’s beauty, God’s love for
everyone, his artistic touch meant just for me at
this moment.
 Topics for Practice
Free write for 5 minutes on the
following topic:
What is the most frightening
experience you have ever had?
 Listing
“Listing” is to write down as many things as
possible.
Use single words or phrases, not sentences.
Listing works well for descriptive-type
writing.
Don’t worry about spelling or sorting out
“good” and “bad” ideas.
 Example List
Topic: Describe your favorite room in the
house/apartment where you live.
Kitchen/Dining Area
White walls, furniture
Flood of sunlight
Beautiful plants
New furniture
Glass door--view of lawn and trees
 Topics for Practice
Take 5 minutes to practice listing in
response to the following topic:
List your life goals.
 Outlining
“Outlining” is a more organized form of pre-
writing than the others we discussed.
It can be used after you have generated
ideas through brainstorming, free writing,
or other pre-writing techniques.
It works well for structured types of
writing such as essays.
You can use complete sentences, but you
don’t have to.
 Example Outline
I. Introduction: Internet “dating” has advantages
and disadvantages.
II. Advantages
a) meet people around the world
b) appearance and age are not important
III. Disadvantages
a) you trust everyone you communicate with
b) may be too far away to meet in person
IV. Conclusion: Some success stories, but too risky
 Topics for Practice
Spend about 5 minutes creating an
outline based on the following topic:
What are the advantages and
disadvantages of whatsapp?
 Clustering / Mapping
“Mapping,” sometimes called “semantic/
idea mapping” or “webbing,” is another way
to organize your ideas.
Start with your topic in the center, and
branch out from there with related ideas.
Use words and phrases, not complete
sentences.
 Example Map
Never stop Instill a love
learning of education
education in my children
Eventually
get a PhD
Learn to love My future
whatever work Make them
I am doing a priority
Stay at home family
work while raising
Use the skills I children
have learned in Stay close to
as many ways as Raise healthy,
my husband
possible happy children
 Topics for Practice
Draw a map to organize your ideas
about the following topic:
What are the causes and effects of
pollution?
 Questioning
Answering who, what, where, when,
why, and how about your topic can also
help you see where you may need to do
more research or develop your research
questions further.
 Practice
Why don't I like math?
When did it all start?
Who caused me to hate math?
How can I deal with the problem?
 Revising
Revising Content
1) unity
2) support
3) organization
Revising sentences
Editing
 Revising Content
Revising Content
1) unity: Is my essay united? Does the thesis statement
reflect the topic addressed? Are the supporting
paragraphs aligned with the thesis statement?
2) support: Is my essay supported? (details, evidence,
statistics, numbers in supporting paragraphs)
3) organization: title - introduction - body - conclusion.
connecting words.
 Revising sentences
Revising Sentences
1) Parallelism (structure)
Parallel structure means using the same pattern of
words to show that two or more ideas have the same
level of importance.
infinitives: Mary likes to hike, to swim, and to draw.
gerunds: Mary likes hiking, swimming, and drawing.
2) Point of view (consistent)
3) Verbs (same tense)
 Editing
Correcting errors for grammar , punctuation
and spelling mistakes.