Lecture 35
- 2. Clear your mind. Relax. Forget all of the rules concerning grammar. This is the most important part of the exercise.
- 3. Set a time limit for yourself. If you are a beginning writer try a ten-minute limit. If you are a more experienced writer, try fifteen to twenty minute sessions. There are recommendations for longer sessions: forty-five minutes to an hour, but I have found that any session longer than twenty minutes become ineffective. What usually results are cracked splashes of ideas that are so abstract and far removed from the original focus that the writer cannot use them for the given piece of writing.
- 4. After you’ve set a time limit, WRITE. Don’t stop. If you spell words wrong, don’t go back to edit. If the idea fades KEEP WRITING. This is crucial to the exercise. Even if you have nothing on your mind, write “I HAVE NOTHING ON MY MIND, I HAVE NOTHING ON MY MIND, I HAVE NOTHING ON MY MIND.” You can keep writing this over and over because it is okay. What you are doing is freeing your mind, and eventually something will surface even if you have to do multiple sessions of free writing.
- 5. When the time limit is finished, STOP. Write nothing else. Then go back to the page. Read it slowly, and underline all of the ideas that surfaced during the session that pertain to the formal writing on which you are working. If the freewriting is too unfocused to use, take a break. Try a second session later, but try to maintain focused on the subject on which you are writing.
- 7. Step 1: Generate Ideas There are four primary methods of generating ideas: 1.Brainstorming 2.Freewriting 3.Idea Map/Web 4."Moodling”
- 8. Step 2: Plan and organize 1. Sample Detailed Outline 2. Creating a Detailed Outline
- 9. Step 3: Draft • To get our ideas down on paper—often complex ideas that may not even be fully formed or understood yet by the writer • To say them in the best possible way, with correct grammar and elegant wording
- 10. Step 4: Revise "Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost." —William Zinsser, On Writing Well
- 11. Step 5: Edit 1. After you have finished inputting your revisions, print out a clean copy of your paper. (Most people can catch errors better on paper than on a screen.) 2. Print out the Personalized Editing Checklist, and in addition to the common errors listed there to check, keep a running list of errors that you are prone to, such as incorrect article usage, word order, or plural/singular nouns. 3. Read through your paper once for each of those error types—i.e., one at a time, checking only for that problem. This process will be time-consuming at first, but the more you concentrate on and fix individual types of errors, the more the correct grammar will be reinforced in your brain and the quicker those errors will disappear from your drafts. 4. If you are unsure about something, consult your course reader or grammar handbook. (The Bedford Handbook and Rules for Writers, both by Diana Hacker, are excellent choices.) 5. Input the edits into your computer (saving the paper as a new version) and print out a clean copy. 6. Read through the paper one last time and fix any other errors you spot. 7. Print out and turn in a final draft that you can be proud of!