Reflective Essay Writing Process

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“If writing didn 't require thinking then we 'd all be doing it.” (Jeremiah Laabs). Whether a person is aware of it or not, there is a process to writing that everyone goes through. I find it difficult to write essays from time to time, so I follow the writing process. The writing process is an approach to writing that involves pre-writing, drafting, and revising and editing. The writing process helps develop facts and ideas from reading about the topic to writing and editing essays. For me, coming up with a topic idea is not the easiest task, especially when the theme given is broad. The first step to narrowing my ideas is reading and research. The idea behind reading is that reading what other authors have to say about certain topics, will …show more content…

At the college level, longer essays and academic writing require more thinking and analysis. After reviewing my information, I have numerous ideas. The key is to choose the best ideas for my writing. Once I have chosen my ideas, I decide how I will present them or in what order I will give my information. At this stage in the writing process, I use an outline. An outline is the skeleton of my paper; the structure of what I will write about. Within my outline I have the introduction, thesis statement, supporting ideas, and conclusion. In the beginning, my outline consists of few words per bullet. This way I do not confuse myself with other facts; strictly my ideas. For example, if I was writing my paper on an author of southern literature, my outline would consist of these bullets: introduction, history about the author, literary works written by the author, analysis of the works, and a conclusion. Once I have organized the structure of my writing, then I am free to add the “flesh” to my outline. Outlines are essential to my writing process. By forming an outline, I can clearly see the path of my writing and the order in which I need to write it so my audience understands what I am trying to convey. Soon after organizing my ideas, I can begin …show more content…

An example is freewriting. The idea of freewriting is that you write for a set time and do not stop. It does not matter about grammar or spelling, only that you keep writing. Freewriting is like an athlete warming up before a game, like shooting hoops or running a warm up lap. There is no pressure, no one counting the score. There are no rules for freewriting. (http://users.humboldt.edu/). Freewriting can be described as a discovery strategy for ideas, another technique to discovering ideas and connections is brainstorming. A technique I find more contributive is brainstorming. When I have found my topic but cannot seem to figure out what to write about it, I brainstorm. Brainstorming is where you have a topic and you write down everything you know that applies to that topic. For instance, if my topic is an author of southern literature, I would write their name in the center of a page and write ideas based on that. By brainstorming about the author, I can visually see the connections being made to my topic. After all my ideas have been put into words, it may be unorderly and unsightly. My writing will need to be

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