How does skipping steps in the writing process affect your writing?
Why spend all that time brainstorming, outlining, and pre-writing?
- Many student writers think they are speeding up the writing process by not brainstorming and or not outlining.
- Many student writers attempt to quickly write a paragraph in one “easy” step and fail.
- Many student writers become discouraged because they do not understand how to easily write better papers.
The “just-get-it-done” method of writing: There is no quick easy one-step writing process. Thinking they are saving time by implementing a one-step process, many student writers jot down a few ideas and then attempt to analyze, rewrite, and organize as they go. The problem is this causes creative ideas, inspirations, and reflections to stop or slow down to a crawl. Ultimately, their brain gets very tired because they are struggling to switch back and forth between analyzing what they have written while trying to also creatively and productively throw down random probably unsystematic information before they forget it. As a result many become irritated and frustrated and shut down saying they don’t know what to write.
“Switching back and forth is hard work because you have to switch from the creative side of your brain to the analytical side and then back and forth which disrupts your creative flow of thoughts.” - Russell Brunson, entrepreneur
When you control which side of the brain you are using for each step, the step-by-step writing process is much easier:
- Creative: Write information down as fast as you can which is called brainstorming.
- Analytical: After brainstorming then organize your brainstorming into an outline only using what applies best to the topic from the brainstorming.
- Creative: To complete the outline embellish it by throwing in some additional ideas and some figures of speech where they make sense in the outline.
- Analytical: Write a rough draft from the outline and then edit.
- Well-written Final Copy
Final paragraphs and essays should be in a logical sequence where thoughts flow and make sense making it easy for the reader to follow and understand. When writers get their thoughts down, then organize those into an outline, and then write out their organized thoughts into a rough draft, the final paper is a well written essay that is easy to follow and understand.
Correctly using the analytical and creative sides of our brains is necessary to write well. Learning how to write using both sides of the brain appropriately creates skilled writers that can tackle any assignment.
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