How the writing process works, from first idea to final check
TEAS 7 outline: Apply elements of the writing process to communicate effectively
- Five stages: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and proofreading.
- Writers can loop back to any stage as needed.
- Revising fixes big things: ideas, order and support.
- Editing improves sentences; proofreading catches spelling, punctuation and typos.
- Credit every quotation, paraphrase, summary or specific fact from a source.
Key facts
- Prewriting generates and organizes ideas before the draft: brainstorming, freewriting, listing, clustering, asking who/what/when/where/why/how, and outlining.
- Drafting turns the plan into sentences and paragraphs; the goal is to get ideas down, not to fix every comma.
- Revising handles big-picture concerns first: thesis or focus, audience and purpose, organization, and whether the support is strong enough. It adds, deletes and moves content.
Show all 7 key factsShow fewer
- Editing works at the sentence level: clearer wording, cutting extra words, word choice and sentence structure. Proofreading is the last pass for spelling, punctuation and typos.
- The process is recursive: a writer can go back to prewriting or revising at any point.
- Quotations, paraphrases and summaries all need credit to the source; quotations also need quotation marks. Common knowledge does not need a citation.
- The best revision of a sentence is grammatically correct, keeps the original meaning, and says it in the fewest clear words.
Quick check1 question · 2 more at the end
While researching a paper, Dante reads an article in which a public health researcher reports a finding from her own study of teenagers' sleep. In his paper, Dante restates the finding entirely in his own words but does not name the researcher or the article. Which statement best describes what Dante did?
Correct answer: B.
Plagiarism includes using another person's idea or finding without credit, even when the wording is your own. Quotations, paraphrases and summaries all need a citation; only quotations also need quotation marks. Common knowledge, such as well-known dates or general facts found in many sources, is the exception, and one researcher's study finding is not common knowledge.
A Changing the words does not make the idea his; a paraphrase without credit is still plagiarism.
B Correct: the finding belongs to the researcher, so his paraphrase must name the source.
C A specific finding from one researcher's study is not common knowledge, so it must be cited.
D A paraphrase needs a citation, not quotation marks; quotation marks are only for exact words.
Full lesson
Each part starts with its main idea. Open a part when you want the details.
The short answer: The writing process moves from prewriting (finding and planning ideas) to drafting, then revising (big changes to ideas, order and support), editing (sentence-level clarity and word choice) and proofreading (a final check for spelling, punctuation and typos). Writers loop back as needed. Credit every quotation, paraphrase, summary or specific fact taken from a source.
1 What are the stages of the writing process?Good writing moves through five stages, and you can loop back to any of them. 1 min
Good writing moves through five stages, and you can loop back to any of them. Writing guides call this recursive: new research or feedback can send you back to planning at any point.
| Stage | What you do | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Prewriting | Brainstorm, freewrite, list, cluster ideas, ask who/what/when/where/why/how, outline | What will I say, and to whom? |
| Drafting | Turn the plan into paragraphs without stopping to fix commas | Are my ideas on the page? |
| Revising | Add, cut or move content; sharpen the thesis; check support | Does the whole piece work? |
| Editing | Improve sentences: clearer words, fewer extra words, better structure | Does each sentence work? |
| Proofreading | Final pass for spelling, punctuation, typos | Are there any surface errors? |
2 How do you tell revising, editing and proofreading apart?Ask how big the change is, because the size of the change tells you the stage. 1 min
Ask how big the change is, because the size of the change tells you the stage. Writing centers call thesis, organization and support higher-order concerns and fix them first. Sentence-level and spelling issues are lower-order concerns.
| Change | Stage |
|---|---|
| Moving the paragraph on costs to the end so the essay builds to it | Revising |
| Deleting a paragraph that does not support the thesis | Revising |
| Changing "a lot of different kinds of" to "many" | Editing |
| Fixing "recieve" to "receive" and adding a missing period | Proofreading |
Quick test: a writer adds two statistics to back up a weak point. Which stage? (Revising, because support is a big-picture concern.)
3 How do you avoid plagiarism?Give credit whenever the words or the specific idea came from someone else. 1 min
Give credit whenever the words or the specific idea came from someone else. Plagiarism can be accidental, such as forgetting quotation marks while copying notes.
| You use… | Credit the source? | Quotation marks? |
|---|---|---|
| Exact words (quotation) | Yes | Yes |
| The idea in your own words (paraphrase) | Yes | No |
| The main points, shortened (summary) | Yes | No |
| Common knowledge (state capitals, well-known dates) | No | No |
| Your own observations or experiment results | No | No |
Suppose an article by J. Ortiz says that most patient falls on her unit happened at night.
- Correct: According to Ortiz, most falls on her unit happened at night.
- Incorrect: Most falls on the unit happened at night. (Her finding, with no credit.)
4 How do you pick the best revision of a sentence?The best revision keeps the meaning and says it in fewer, clearer, correct words. 1 min
The best revision keeps the meaning and says it in fewer, clearer, correct words. Use these four steps every time.
- Say the original sentence's meaning in a few words.
- Cross out any choice with a grammar error, such as a fragment.
- Cross out any choice that drops or changes a fact.
- From what is left, pick the clearest and most concise.
Original: "The reason why the clinic opened late was basically because of the fact that the main door lock was broken and not working."
| Choice | Verdict |
|---|---|
| A. The clinic opened late because the main door lock was broken. | Best: correct, complete, concise |
| B. The clinic opened late. | Too short: drops the reason |
| C. Because the main door lock was broken. | Fragment |
| D. The reason the clinic opened late was basically due to the lock being broken. | Still wordy ("the reason… was due to", "basically") |
Wordiness signals: filler words (basically, really, kind of), redundant pairs (end result, future plans), repeated ideas (broken and not working) and redundant categories (large in size).
Common mistakes
The traps students fall into most. Read these before you practice.
Watch out: Fixing a typo or a comma is proofreading, not revising; revising changes ideas, order or support.
Watch out: Putting a source's idea in your own words still needs a citation; changing the words does not make the idea yours.
Watch out: The shortest answer choice is not automatically the best revision; first throw out any choice that drops or changes the meaning.
Watch out: Polishing commas before fixing the thesis or organization wastes time, because whole sentences may be cut later.
Watch out: A choice that only rearranges the same wordy phrases is not a real improvement.
How to remember it
Think of fixing up a house, where revising moves the walls, editing rearranges the furniture, and proofreading dusts the shelves. Nobody dusts a room that is about to be torn down, so do the big work first.
Self-check:
- Name the stage for "changing the order of two body paragraphs."
- Explain why a paraphrase still needs a citation.
- Cut this to its core: "All new staff must completely finish the training before their first shift."
Show answers
- Revising.
- Moving content changes the organization of the whole piece.
- That is a big-picture (higher-order) concern, so it belongs to revising.
- The idea still came from someone else.
- A paraphrase changes the words, not the source of the idea.
- Give credit whenever the words or the specific idea came from someone else. Only the quotation marks are dropped.
- "All new staff must finish the training before their first shift."
- "Completely finish" is a redundant pair: finishing is already complete.
- The meaning and every fact stay the same.