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Based on his courses in the Writing Program at Harvard University, Jeffrey R. Wilson’s Academic Writing is a no-nonsense guide to the long and complex writing process. Packed with concrete examples, helpful visuals, and practical tips, the book is an essential guide for academic writing at the highest level.
- 1. Preface
- The College Essay
- Discovery & Investigation
- Prewriting
- Drafting
- Revising
- Building the House
- Land Prep (Research & Free Writing)
- Plumbing & Electrical (Paragraphs)
- Final Inspection & Walkthrough (Formatting & Editing)
- Final Thoughts
“Close-up View Of An Old Typewriter” by Suzy Hazelwood, Pexels is in the Public Domain, CC0 In this text, we will enter the world of academic writing by exploring how to craft the college essay. We will do this through an interactive discussion of the six main stages of the writing process and the six main elements of the essay format. While no ess...
The methods for creating a successful college essay are not the same for everyone. Some writers require complete silence with no distractions, while others crave noise and interaction while they work. Many of us have little choice concerning how and when get to write. We fit it in between life and work and death and taxes. While no guide can help y...
The first step in writing a successful college essay requires an active engagement with your sources. Simply reading a source for basic content is not quite enough. The questions should not be simply “What does this say?” or “What happened?” but rather “Why did that happen?” “What does that say about the larger themes and ideas I am exploring?” and...
Prewriting is the step in which tools such as free writing, brainstorming, outlining, or clustering are used. In prewriting, no idea is too off-topic or too strange to pursue. It is these sometimes dissociative ideas that can lead you to a paper topic that you never would have considered. You will have time to tailor and sculpt your prewriting idea...
Drafting is the beginning of “writing” your paper. It is important to remember that in drafting you should already have a thesis idea to guide your writing. Without a thesis, your writing will be prone to drift, making it harder to structure after the fact. In drafting, the writer should use materials created in the prewriting stage and any Introdu...
There are two different scopes of revision: global and local. Global revision involves looking for issues like cohesion of your main idea(s) and the overall progression of your essay. If your essay has paragraphs that do not flow into each other, but rather change topics abruptly only to return to a previous thought later, your essay has poor cohes...
Writing an essay is a lot like building a house. In fact, it really IS building a house. As essay is a metaphor for a certain kind of mental construction. The steps are essential and must be engaged thoroughly, methodically, and without rushing through to the end. Procrastination is a killer. Taking short cuts will diminish the quality of the final...
“Surveying” by Cafeymas, Pixabay is in the Public Domain, CC0 The first step in the construction process is getting the land ready. This includes clearing the area, digging trenches and making sure utilities are installed. In essay writing, this is the research process. This is when we brainstorm, free write, and gather research on topics of intere...
Once the home is framed, subcontractors will start installing the home’s major “Plumbing Pipe Wrench” by stevepb, systems, including plumbing Pixabay is in the Public Domain, CC0 pipes, electrical wiring and heating and cooling ducts. These are the systems that move air, water and electricity through the home and make everything flow. In an essay, ...
“White Wooden Door Near Brown Wooden Parquet Floor” by Curtis Adams, Pexels is in the Public Domain, Once construction is complete, a final CC0 inspection will be conducted by a local building official. Before you move in, you’ll want to do a final walkthrough with your builder to identify a list items that need to be repaired for the job to be con...
Remember that writing is a process. We keep saying this but that is for a reason: it’s true. When we realize the importance of each of the steps in the quality and coherence of the final product, it helps us to not get lost in the seemingly endless details of the process. We are working towards building something meaningful and lasting. A structure...
chapter explains and illustrates the sequence of steps in writing an effective essay. In particular, the chapter focuses on prewriting and revising—strategies that can help with every paper you write. For many people, writing is a process that involves the following steps: 1 Discovering a thesis—often through prewriting.
structure. There are several structures you can consider (chronological, comparative, thematic, context, etc.); this will partly depend on the terms used in the essay question. The structure can be more complicated. For example, it may be appropriate to have a thematic structure overall, and to be comparative within paragraphs. You can
THE WRITING PROCESS. Organizing an Essay. Organizing ideas and information clearly and logically in an essay, so that readers will understand and be able to follow the writer's thinking, is an essential stage of the writing process, but one that often proves to be more difficult than it sounds.
This is an overview of the steps of the writing process. As you grow as a writer, you’ll go deeper into each stage of the process. Here, we’re just trying to map it out for you. Now that you have a better understanding of the steps, let’s talk about what the writing process means for you.
A structure and format which help the reader to absorb the subject matter. An intellectual coherence which starts with precise aims, from which follow the research design, and a clear conclusion. Accuracy in grammar and punctuation. Consistency in referencing, presentation and the use of terms.
