Understand the writing process

An important initial stage in the writing process is planning. Effective planning helps you to organise your ideas, effectively integrate research, and write a first draft with a clear purpose, helping you to stay on track. Planning involves three main steps, analysing the task, brainstorming and writing a plan.

Analysing the task

Analysing the task helps you understand clearly what you are expected to do in the assessment. Some key features you need to keep in mind when analysing the task include: understanding the purpose of the task, exploring the topic and finalising the scope of the task. For a more detailed explanation, guidelines and practice exercises about analysing an assessment task, refer to this page “Understand your assessment.”

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the next step in the planning stage. Brainstorming involves noting down concepts, examples, evidence, technical terms related to the assignment task. It helps you generate relevant and useful ideas for the task. For more detailed information, guidelines and some practice exercises about brainstorming, refer to this page “Brainstorming and mind-mapping.”

Writing a plan

A good plan is like a road map for writing your assessment. It helps you to determine the structure of your written piece (i.e. the structure of an essay), including the topics/questions/issues you will address and, importantly, how and when you will address them in the writing. Try to write a plan that gives you a purpose and focus for each paragraph or section of writing. Ask yourself: what does paragraph 1 need to cover? What is the main focus and topic for paragraph 2? This part of the planning process will make drafting easier.

You may find these sources on Analyse sources and arguments and Create your own argument helpful in writing a plan.

Drafting is usually the next stage in the process of writing. It involves following the plan you have created and writing a draft of each paragraph. Don’t worry if it starts messy! It’s better to get some words down on the page, even if they aren’t perfectly written, and then you can see whether the structure and plan are working well. Try to get one full draft written relatively quickly, referring back to your plan to stay on track.

You will go through the drafting stage several times and may need some modifications of what you have noted in the planning stage until you are satisfied with your writing. In the process of drafting, pay attention to different aspects such as organising your ideas (i.e. logical sequence of ideas, cohesion and coherence), writing clear sentences and expressing uncertainty in writing.

For more detailed information about the above aspects, see the links below:

The final stage in the writing process involves editing and proofreading. Editing focuses on checking your drafted work to ensure that the ideas are clear and supported by evidence. Proofreading focuses on checking grammar and vocabulary.

In particular, editing involves checking the writing content and aims at improving the quality of writing. It may involve deleting unimportant or irrelevant information in the writing, and modifying to ensure each sentence and paragraph clearly communicates your argument and analysis. Meanwhile, proofreading ensures the accuracy of grammatical items and vocabulary (such as spelling, word choice, word form).

It’s important to leave enough time for editing and proofreading. Try to finish your assessment a couple of days early so that you can read it with fresh eyes - it can be hard to spot errors when you have been focused on the same document for a long time. Printing out drafts can also help you to edit and proofread effectively.

For tips and strategies about editing and proofreading, refer to these pages: