ANALYSIS ESSAY

8.3 Drafting

Learning Objectives

1. Identify drafting strategies that improve writing.

2. Use drafting strategies to prepare the first draft of an essay.

Drafting is the stage of the writing process in which you develop a complete first version of a piece of

writing.

Even professional writers admit that an empty page scares them because they feel they need to come up

with something fresh and original every time they open a blank document on their computers. Because

you have completed the first two steps in the writing process, you have already recovered from empty

page syndrome. You have hours of prewriting and planning already done. You know what will go on that

blank page: what you wrote in your outline.

Getting Started: Strategies For Drafting

Your objective for this portion of Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” is to draft the body

paragraphs of a standard five-paragraph essay. A five-paragraph essay contains an introduction, three

body paragraphs, and a conclusion. If you are more comfortable starting on paper than on the computer,

you can start on paper and then type it before you revise. You can also use a voice recorder to get yourself

started, dictating a paragraph or two to get you thinking. In this lesson, Mariah does all her work on the

computer, but you may use pen and paper or the computer to write a rough draft.

Making the Writing Process Work for You

What makes the writing process so beneficial to writers is that it encourages alternatives to standard

practices while motivating you to develop your best ideas. For instance, the following approaches, done

alone or in combination with others, may improve your writing and help you move forward in the writing

process:

• Begin writing with the part you know the most about. You can start with the third

paragraph in your outline if ideas come easily to mind. You can start with the second

paragraph or the first paragraph, too. Although paragraphs may vary in length, keep in mind

that short paragraphs may contain insufficient support. Readers may also think the writing is abrupt.

Long paragraphs may be wordy and may lose your reader’s interest. As a guideline, try to write

paragraphs longer than one sentence but shorter than the length of an entire double-spaced page.

• Write one paragraph at a time and then stop. As long as you complete the assignment on

time, you may choose how many paragraphs you complete in one sitting. Pace yourself. On

the other hand, try not to procrastinate. Writers should always meet their deadlines.

• Take short breaks to refresh your mind. This tip might be most useful if you are writing a

multipage report or essay. Still, if you are antsy or cannot concentrate, take a break to let your

mind rest. But do not let breaks extend too long. If you spend too much time away from your

essay, you may have trouble starting again. You may forget key points or lose momentum.

Try setting an alarm to limit your break, and when the time is up, return to your desk to write.

• Be reasonable with your goals. If you decide to take ten-minute breaks, try to stick to that

goal. If you told yourself that you need more facts, then commit to finding them. Holding

yourself to your own goals will create successful writing assignments.

• Keep your audience and purpose in mind as you write. These aspects of writing are just as

important when you are writing a single paragraph for your essay as when you are

considering the direction of the entire essay.

Of all of these considerations, keeping your purpose and your audience at the front of your mind is the

most important key to writing success. If your purpose is to persuade, for example, you will present your

facts and details in the most logical and convincing way you can.

Your purpose will guide your mind as you compose your sentences. Your audience will guide word

choice. Are you writing for experts, for a general audience, for other college students, or for people who

know very little about your topic? Keep asking yourself what your readers, with their background and

experience, need to be told in order to understand your ideas. How can you best express your ideas so

they are totally clear and your communication is effective?

Tip

You may want to identify your purpose and audience on an index card that you clip to your paper

(or keep next to your computer). On that card, you may want to write notes to yourself —perhaps

about what that audience might not know or what it needs to know—so that you will be sure to

address those issues when you write. It may be a good idea to also state exactly what you want to

explain to that audience, or to inform them of, or to persuade them about.

Writing at Work

Many of the documents you produce at work target a particular audience for a particular purpose.

You may find that it is highly advantageous to know as much as you can about your target audience

and to prepare your message to reach that audience, even if the audience is a coworker or your boss.

Menu language is a common example. Descriptions like “organic romaine” and “free -range chicken”

are intended to appeal to a certain type of customer though perhaps not to the same customer who

craves a thick steak. Similarly, mail-order companies research the demographics of the people who

buy their merchandise. Successful vendors customize product descriptions in catalogs to appeal to

their buyers’ tastes. For example, the product descriptions in a skateboarder catalog will differ from

the descriptions in a clothing catalog for mature adults.

326 [Author removed at request of original publisher

Setting Goals for Your First Draft

A draft is a complete version of a piece of writing, but it is not the final version. The step in the writing

process after drafting, as you may remember, is revising. During revising, you will have the opportunity

to make changes to your first draft before you put the finishing touches on it during the editing and

proofreading stage. A first draft gives you a working version that you can later improve.

Writing at Work

Workplace writing in certain environments is done by teams of writers who collaborate on the

planning, writing, and revising of documents, such as long reports, technical manuals, and the

results of scientific research. Collaborators do not need to be in the same room, the same building, or

even the same city. Many collaborations are conducted over the Internet.

In a perfect collaboration, each contributor has the right to add, edit, and delete text. Strong

communication skills, in addition to strong writing skills, are important in this kind of writing

situation because disagreements over style, content, process, emphasis, and other issues may arise.

Exercise 1

Using the topic for the essay that you outlined in Section 8.2 “Outlining”, describe your purpose and

your audience as specifically as you can. Use your own sheet of paper to record your responses. Then

keep these responses near you during future stages of the writing process.

• My purpose:

• My Audience:

The collaborative software, or document management systems, that groups use to work on

common projects is sometimes called groupware or workgroup support systems.

The reviewing tool on some word-processing programs also gives you access to a collaborative

tool that many smaller workgroups use when they exchange documents. You can also use it to

leave comments to yourself.

Tip

If you invest some time now to investigate how the reviewing tool in your word processor works, you

will be able to use it with confidence during the revision stage of the writing process. Then, when you

start to revise, set your reviewing tool to track any changes you make, so you will be able to tinker

with text and commit only those final changes you want to keep.

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Discovering the Basic Elements of a First Draft

If you have been using the information in this chapter step by step to help you develop an assignment,

you already have both a formal topic outline and a formal sentence outline to direct your writing.

Knowing what a first draft looks like will help you make the creative leap from the outline to the first

draft. A first draft should include the following elements:

• An introduction that piques the audience’s interest, tells what the essay is about,

and motivates readers to keep reading.

• A thesis statement that presents the main point, or controlling idea, of the entire piece of

writing.

• A topic sentence in each paragraph that states the main idea of the paragraph and implies

how that main idea connects to the thesis statement.

• Supporting sentences in each paragraph that develop or explain the topic sentence. These

can be specific facts, examples, anecdotes, or other details that elaborate on the topic

sentence.

• A conclusion that reinforces the thesis statement and leaves the audience with a feeling

of completion.

These elements follow the standard five-paragraph essay format, which you probably first encountered

in high school. This basic format is valid for most essays you will write in college, even much longer

ones. For now, however, Mariah focuses on writing the three body paragraphs from her outline. Chapter

9 “Writing Essays: From Start to Finish” covers writing introductions and conclusions, and you will read

Mariah’s introduction and conclusion in Chapter 9 “Writing Essays: From Start to Finish”.