By Jordan Raines
As we progress in life we often learn of things that we may not be good at. A weakness if you will. My weakness is writing. I am a process driven person, and often find success following the process. When it came to learning the art of writing, I found an article that helped me get started. The article “text is an object outside of oneself that can be improved and developed”, written by Charles Bazerman and Howard Tinberg, is a discussion on how writing down thoughts into any medium to choose from, is a way for a writer to express one’s thoughts and ideas for either the writer themselves, a reader, or a collaborator to see. This practice is quite honestly the base that most writing pieces start at. At times I find myself sitting in front of a computer trying to determine where to start. I then start to ramble and word vomit on a word document to get everything out of my system. Sometimes there are ideas just pumping out of my brain, and on other occasions I stare, stare long and hard at the computer screen. The writing process is strenuous, and takes time to perform. For that reason alone, any tools that help the process are key.
There are a few ways that writers should review their own writing once they have a draft. The first would be to review the text for clarity, conveying the idea, and check for any improvements that are needed. Next would be to review the writing in a distancing manner, allowing oneself to become the reader, distance themselves from the writer role, and get a sense of meaning and what the writing is tryin to convey. This may be the most challenging task yet, but that’s ok, you are doing great.
So now you have all these crazy ideas mashed together on paper and everything seems to look great and sound great. Well, to me at least. Where do you go from here? Draft review my friend. Two ways that readers should look at a draft for someone else:
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- Review with an eye for technicality. Make sure the writer’s ideas and being conveyed, while paying attention to sentence structure and flow. Also make sure that the ideas that writer is expressing are linking back to the thesis. It is also key to make sure the writers ideas are organized.
- Do not hold back from honesty feedback. Sometimes the truth can shatter us. That’s ok. The goal of a review is for someone other than the writer, that has no attachment’s to the writing, can review it with honesty. What you do with the feedback given is what can make or break your writing.
Writing isn’t easy. There is a process, and if you stick with it, you will grow as a writer. I often compare writing to walking. You have to crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run. The process of getting all of your thoughts and ideas on paper organized into something good is the start. The next steps will be hard but worth it when you are creating something brilliant.
