Five Steps of the Writing Process: How to Become a Good Writer

Step One: Brainstorming!

First the writer must think about his/her requirements for their particular piece of writing if any. Keeping this is mind, brainstorm about different topics you could write about and think about the subcategories below tem.

EXAMPLE: You are required to write an essay on the Holocaust survivor, Anne Frank. It should discuss a theme of her life and examples of this. While brainstorming you could come up with something like this: Perseverance>examples-never giving up on the good in people, never ending her writing in her diary, and continuing to aid her family in whatever way she could. This would provide you with a main theme and 3 supporting topics and examples.

Step Two: Writing a Thesis!

Next the writer must come up with a one or two sentence thesis which states the main idea of the essay.

EXAMPLE: You are required to write a poetry analysis on“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. After brainstorming, you come up with two themes of individuality and having no regrets. A very simple and easy, yet effective thesis would be this: Two of the themes explored in this poem include individuality and the importance of leaving regrets behind.

Step Three: Making a Basic Outline!

The third step in the writing process is making an outline to organize your thoughts. The outline can be as simple or complex as you want, and still be just as effective. Making an outline does not mean making a very strict and set system. It's just the way to keep you from getting away from your topic while writing.

EXAMPLE: Keeping with the poetry analysis of Robert Frost, I'll give you another example. For those who do not know, a poetry analysis involves stating the themes of a poem, providing quotes form the poem to support these themes, and analyzing the meaning behind the quotes. Here is a simple outline: Paragraph I: Identify literal meaning of poem>2-Sentence Thesis Paragraph II: Individuality is first theme>Quote from Line 2-3>Analyze this quote's meaning. Paragraph III: Importance of leaving regrets behind is second theme> Quote from Line 16>Analyze the quote's meaning. Paragraph IV: Restate overall meaning of poem>Talk about your personal beliefs.

Step Four: Making the Rough Draft!

This step is self-explanatory and hard to mess up. Just follow your outline, keep in mind your topic, and write what comes in your mind. Don't worry about messing up in this step; just write as it comes to you. Some believe in making two rough drafts but I believe this is a useless step that can be skipped thanks to computers. You can do all the editing you want on the computer. This step will obviously take the longest to do. No example needed here.

Step Five: The End, The Good Draft!

After careful corrections grammatically and idea-wise, you are ready to make the final draft. Be sure to read over your work a few times to make sure you said everything that you wanted to include. You are your own toughest critic so if you're happy with your work, then you're finished! But based on personal experience it is always very helpful to let others read it over to see what they have to say.

Writing shouldn't be a chore. It's a fun way to express your ideas and beliefs clearly. So just follow these steps and say what you mean and before long, you'll be the next-best thing to a journalist.