HOW TO START WRITING

HOW TO START WRITING

Abdullah Farih, M.Pd

In some case, some of people feel difficult to start writing. In this good occasion, The writer would like to give some steps in writing. According to Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue (2007) there are four steps in writing, they are: (a) Prewriting; (b) Organizing; (c) Writing, and (d) Polishing: Revising and Editing.

Prewriting

The First step of writing process is prewriting. Prewriting is a away to get ideas, In this step you choose a topic and collect ideas to explain the topic. There are several techniques you can use to get ideas. one of the common one is Listing. Listing is a prewriting technique in which you write the topic at the top of paper and then quickly make a list of the words or phrases that come in to your mind. Don’t stop to wonder if an idea is good or not. Write it Down! Keep on writing untuil the flow of ideas stops.

In the following example, the assignment was to write a paragraph about a people who has made a difference in the world, in the community, or in the writer’s life.

First, the writer made a list of people who have made a difference, e.g Mother, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein. Then he decided which person to write about and circled his choice.

The second, The writer looked his list and decided to write about how his mother helped her community. He circled that idea. Then he thought how his mother helped her community.

Organizing

The second step in the writing process is to organize the ideas into a simple outline. Decide which idea will go first, second, third, and so on. Make a simple outline listing the ideas in the order you will write about them. Use the outline to guide you as you write. The writer of our models wrote a sentence that named the topic and told the main idea.               

Writing/Drafting

The third step is Writing or drafting. Writing is the writer’s first attempt to capture ideas on paper. write the rough draft at the top of your paper. Quantity here is valued over quality. If done correctly, the draft is a rambling, disconnected accumulation of ideas. Most of the writing activities in the classroom involve just these first two steps. Only those drafts that students feel are interesting or of value should be taken to the next step.

From the previous statement, it is clearly that drafting is the stage where the writers focus on the fluency of writing. They transform the ideas and information they want to say into written form without worrying yet about grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalization.

Polishing : Revising and Editing

The fourth is Polishing. Polish the rough draft. Exchange papers with a classmate and ask him or her to check your rough draft using Peer-Editing Worksheet, then discuss the completed worksheet and decide what changes you should make. Write a second draft.

This is the heart of the writing process. Here a piece is revised and reshaped many times. Revising is where you shape the blob, adding parts, taking parts away, adding parts, and continually molding and changing.

In this step, the writers recheck, rethink, and refine the content of their writing to see what works, what might need developing, changing, or deleting in order the content can be delivered more effectively to the readers.

This step also checks grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors are corrected. If writers are editing or worrying about mechanics at the prewriting, organizing, writing, and polishing steps, the flow of ideas and the quality of writing suffers.

Publishing and sharing

This is where students’ writing is shared with an audience. Writing becomes real and alive at this point. Publishing can involve putting together class books, collections of writing, school or class newspapers, school or class magazines, or displaying short samples of writing in the hall or out in the community.

In this stage, the students’ writing should share and publish to the audience. It also increases the students’ wiriting experience become more powerful by having students read their work out loud in small groups, to another classmate, or in a large group setting.

From the previous explanation, it can be stated that writing is not a simple task which can be done in short time. The writers, unconsiously, do some processes when they are writing. They plan or prewriting their writing by determining their purpose to write, and gathering idea and information they want to write. Next, they make a draft by writing their idea. Then, they revise what they have written. They also check or edit their writing from the aspect of grammar, spelling, and vocabulary and the last stage, they share and publish their own writing to an audience. Writing becomes real and alive at this point. Each of those stages can occur or recur at any moment during the production of a finished piece of writing.