Writing is a complex process. You may be writing a research paper, a thesis, a book or even a blog post, but putting your thoughts into paper (or Word document) is not enough. You thoughts are unstructured. Moreover, without proper planning and research, it may not seem authentic as well. Hence, following a step-by-step guide is essential. These steps also would be immensely helpful when you are going through a writer’s block and cannot begin writing. The 5 stages of writing process would ensure that your work gets published without any glitches, right on time.
Brainstorming or Pre-Writing
The writing process does not begin when you put pen to paper or when you start typing on the keypad. In fact, it begins much before, i.e. right when an idea germinates in your mind. Brainstorming gives you the chance to bring your ideas out of your head and give it a visual format. Here, you can structure your thoughts and link the main idea with other ideas that you can include in your writing. You can also create an idea about the tone of your write-up by thinking about your target audience, at this stage.
Research and Planning
Research is extremely important if you want your publishers to take you seriously. Be it a historical article, a scientific thesis or even a novel, you have to take out time for research. Your research material can come from the internet, books and even interviews with experts. However, before you go on a researching spree, plan your research as well. What are the things that you ought to know and how are you going to go about it should be clearly thought about. Also, keep a deadline for research and complete it within the stipulated time.
Drafting
This is where the actual writing process begins. The brainstorming, planning and researching processes culminate into a structured write-up that has a beginning, middle and ending. The more time and effort you have put on the first two stages, the easier the third stage becomes. Apart from providing your content proper structure with chapters, paragraphs and page numbers, it is also important to mention your resources. This provides authenticity to your article or content.
Copy Editing
After you have included all the points and your writing is complete comes the most critical stage, i.e. editing. This is the time when you have to look at your write-up critically. It would be best to take a break for a few days and come back to your article with a fresh set of eyes. This would help you to edit your article more clearly. While editing, you need to focus on the flow of the article. It is during this stage that you need to remove things that have been repeated too many times or add more evidence if an idea or thought does not seem convincing. If the thoughts in a paragraph or chapter do not seem clear, this is the right time to rephrase it.
Proofreading
Once you are 100% sure about your draft, it is time to move to the final stage before publishing, i.e. proofreading. While editing is all about finding out the errors in the content, proofreading focuses on the technical aspects of writing. Here, you need to concentrate on sentence structure, grammar, punctuations, spelling, capitalizations, syntax, etc. In short, this is where you make your article error-free. It would be a good idea to hand over your article to a friend, colleague or family member to proofread your article, without being clouded by emotional attachment. You can also hire a professional proofreading company like Siliconchips Services Ltd. to do this work effectively.
Conclusion
Writers have their own writing processes that they have developed over the years. However, if you are a newbie or seem to be stuck in your writing, following these 5 steps would help you to complete your project on time.