Chapter 1: The Writing Process

Chapter 1 is about “The Writing Process.” Writing is the process of figuring out what we think; it is not just recording already developed thoughts. It is not possible to record all our thoughts so we have to follow four main steps before we write a first draft. First step is to “Assess the writing situation.” We have to observe the writing situation first, these writing situation includes subject, sources of information, purpose and audience, length and document design, reviewers and deadlines. We can narrow down a subject to topic by subdividing the subject, then restricting the purpose, restricting the audience and considering the information available to us. Second step is to “Experiment with ways to explore the subject.” Before writing first draft we can experiment with one or more techniques like talking and listening to the matters that are related to subject, annotating texts and taking notes out or written resources, clustering, freewriting, asking the journalist’s questions and keeping a journal. Third step is to “Formulate a tentative thesis.” We have to figure out the main idea of the subject we are writing then generate a thesis statement that answers the question about our topics. Thesis sentence is usually found in the opening paragraph of the essay. Final step is to “Sketch a plan.” In this step we will write and outline for the facts that supports our thesis statement. It is a tentative structure of our ideas for essay. First we can write informal outline then later to figure out if the outline supports the essay, we have to write formal outline.

In my writing will for sure use these four steps. These steps look really helpful. Usually when I start writing essay I start to write as I read, for an hour or two I just waste my time trying to figure out where to start. Now I know that first I have to generate ideas and sketch the plan. The most time I will be spending will be on assessing the writing situation, which includes subject, source information, purpose and audience and length and document designs. Then I will follow the rest of the steps.