Drafting and Organizing
Once you think that you have enough ideas or prewriting material generated, it is time to start writing and organizing it into a draft.
Blocking or chunking is like an informal outline or a set of rough blueprints that represent intentions for a draft. It is one way of organizing prewriting material into a general outline for a paper by simultaneously looking at materials, their purpose, and audience expectations.
Paradigms are mental representations of some course of action. They act like maps that help you navigate your writing-before you write. Writers can use these maps to discover the organization possibilities inherent in some ideas and experiences.
A thesis statement is a sentence, two sentences, or a number of sentences, which provides a focus for an essay. It will generally be found within the closing lines of the first paragraph of an essay, but it can also occur in the second paragraph or even on a later page. Its primary purpose is to convey the author's purpose and attitude. It is the purpose of the paper.
Knowing the audience for your piece of writing can help with focus. Knowing who the audience is for a particular piece of writing will help determine what information needs to be included, what needs to be explained further, and assumptions your audience may bring to the reading.
When do you create a paragraph? Paragraphs help to organize information in a paper; however, the most effective paragraphs are not just limited to the 3-5 sentence rule.
Transitional expressions help achieve coherence and establish relationships among sentences which are choppy and/or hard to follow. Think of transitional expressions as "connectors"--words that link ideas in sentences and paragraphs together. Occasional use of them can help you vary your sentence structure, as well as lead you to draw conclusions you might not have thought of otherwise.
Peter Elbow's Direct writing process is best used when you have plenty to say, but a deadline is approaching fast.
Writing an essay for a test is entirely different from writing a paper. During an essay test, time is limited so the writing process is collapsed into just three stages: prewriting, writing, and revision. In addition, about 90% of the time is spent in the writing stage, whereas the majority of time writing a paper is spent in the revision and editing stages.
