The Writing Process: The Power of the Written Word

Speakers: Male Speaker, Kena Ray, Dr. Aaron Coe, Amelia Boan

MALE SPEAKER: Words. How often do we really think about them? How often do we take

words for granted? I know I do often enough. There’s power in words. When I’m not taking

them for granted, I think about how even in their most basic solitary state, certain words

have the ability to stand on their own.

At one time, we didn’t write words down. At one time, words were carried between

communities and histories through oral tradition or pictures. Then parchment showed up. In

a century’s long blink, words magically appeared on a screen. Now we can manipulate

them quickly, no longer having to chisel them into stone or toil with an inkwell.

Humans, we’re an intelligent creature, capable of transcribing our hopes and stories

immediately and indefinitely. Information sharing, reporting, transcribing, storytelling, all at

the speed of thought and the stroke of our fingers. We link words together with purpose.

Well, maybe not always. This takes me to my dilemma. I recently had one of those

moments in my life when I came face to face with writing a paper and when I set out to do

the work, that is turning words into something for an assignment, I realized how long it had

been since I’d written a paper, so long in fact that I had forgotten how. Worse yet, I had

forgotten where to begin.

So I did what anyone in my situation might do. I asked for help. I didn’t want to just

haphazardly throw words together. I wanted to write with purpose and write well. More than

anything, I wanted to use a proven writing process. So I set out to find a community of

people who could clue me in on some resources and offer insight and maybe just maybe

I’d learn from them.

This first person that I’m meeting with has worked as a journalist before. Now she’s

working with educational content so I’m sure she understands how to get a project

underway and completely polished. I’m hoping that she can get me started.

KENA RAY: When you first sit down to do your paper, the very first thing you do is read

that syllabus.

Read the instructions carefully and make sure that you understand everything that is listed

in the assignment requirements.

So check for the topic of course. Figure out what type of paper it’s going to be. Check the

word count requirement and see if there are any references required for your paper.

MALE SPEAKER: It sounded easy enough. I had to read over the assignment, choose a

topic if it hadn’t already been chosen for me, and I was pretty sure the kind of paper it was

meant to be could lead me to identify a problem of some sort, right? Word count and

references? Simple enough.

KENA RAY: Generally when you’re writing a paper, you need to figure out who your

audience is. A lot of the times it’ll just be your facilitator, your classmates. Those are the

people who will be reading it but sometimes you’re asked to write a paper from the

perspective of a CEO of an organization or something like that.

When you know your audience, you can adjust your tone, vocabulary, and point of view.

MALE SPEAKER: Audience. Got it.

KENA RAY: It may be helpful to set some short-term and long-term deadlines. For

instance, a short-term goal would be to write your first draft by Tuesday if your paper is due

Friday. If you break it into chunks like that, it makes it a lot less daunting to sit down and

write.

MALE SPEAKER: Yeah, I think this is where I get stuck. My life gets pretty busy.

KENA RAY: Yeah, consider your schedule. Think about when you do your best work. If

that’s in the middle of the night, that’s awesome. Write then. Or if it’s first thing in the

morning before your kids wake up, do it then too – whatever works for you.

MALE SPEAKER: At this point I have my what, the topic, and my when, the timeline, but I

really need my how. It’s time to do some research and really learn about my topic. This

next person is sure to help me.

DR. AARON COE: Once you’ve read the directions and kind of identified what it is you’re

doing, you have a main idea that you begin to focus on and this is really your topic. So

what I would suggest is really breaking it up into an outline and ask yourself what are the

things the assignment is asking me to talk about related to my topic? Then think about well

what do you yourself want to say about the topic and how can that complement the

assignment at hand?

MALE SPEAKER: Okay, so topics and subtopics. The outline follows. That made sense but

I started to wonder about my thesis statement.

DR. AARON COE: You know, thinking about a thesis statement within your research and

your writing is really important. You really should be thinking about that from the beginning

as you look at your assignment and look at what it is that you’re going to write.

You start to shape what it is you want to say about it and as you do that, begin to draft a

thesis out. It doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect the first time but really think about what

you want to say and write it down.

MALE SPEAKER: Writing it down seemed like a good idea but I started feeling a bit

overwhelmed with keeping everything organized. Fortunately, Aaron had it covered.

DR. AARON COE: The outline really helps and allows you to take notes on each subtopic

and think about where you’re going in the research and really where the research is taking

you.

MALE SPEAKER: It was all starting to come back to me. I had my main points, my thesis

statement, and the message I wanted to convey to my audience was coming together

rather nicely. There was that piece I had mentioned about wanting to do it well though. My

paper needed to be authentic.

DR. AARON COE: Well once you’ve developed an outline and know what it is you want to

talk about in a paper and want to do your research on, finding some legitimate and quality

academic sources is really important.

You can start really general, an encyclopedia or your textbook, and really what you need to

look at is what are their sources? Where did they get their information? So you can start

with the textbook but really dig in. Where did that textbook get its information and where did

those sources get their information and begin to create a little research trail to get to the

beginning point because if you can get to that beginning point, then you can begin to

articulate your story based on the actual evidence related to the topic.

When you’re citing sources, you really want to avoid citing non-academic resources. Don’t

just use Google on the internet. Go to the University Library and search in there and look

for resources that are actually found in the library because more often than not, those are

really going to be good academic sources.

You know, the University Library is great because you can really use the library to search

for the resources that you need and find the specific topics that you’re looking for and

subtopics.

MALE SPEAKER: Okay, legitimate research. I had to remember everything the library

offered and keep it academic. I was also glad that he had brought up citations. That is

definitely one of those areas that I had always found a little intimidating. I wanted to stay

organized from the start.

DR. AARON COE: Should I worry about citations from the beginning of my research?

Absolutely. If you quote something, put the quotes in your paper. Write the page number in

your notes so you have that later when you go to make that citation so as you are digging

through that research, as you’re working to find those primary sources, jot down what those

sources are, and make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Plagiarism is very serious, particularly in an academic world. You know, we don’t want to

take others’ work. We don’t want to take credit for other peoples’ ideas, so the safe bet is

always to go ahead and cite your work.

MALE SPEAKER: Okay. Taking credit for someone else’s work; I definitely didn’t want that.

I figured if I was citing way too much, my facilitator could always tell me to tone it down.

Better safe than sorry. Also I could see how the research could influence my work, that I

could just adjust topics and subtopics as necessary just as long as I wouldn’t veer from my

actual assignment.

DR. AARON COE: As you’re shaping that outline and jotting down those citations and the

references, this really helps when you’re looking at the requirements in a given

assignment. Some assignments have specific numbers and minimums of references you

need. This helps you keep track of how many references you have and make sure you can

address that in an assignment.

MALE SPEAKER: The assignment requirements; I had to remember those. I also

appreciated the way he kept referring to the outline which will become the backbone of my

process.

DR. AARON COE: Yeah, so you’ve got to really remember writing is a process so use that

timeline and work ahead. That’s what is great about an outline. If you complete an outline,

well, you’ve completed part of that process and as you fill in that outline, you complete that

process further and it leads you toward that writing itself so that’s how it is a process

because you’re going step by step to put yourself in a position to do the writing and do

something well.

So it’s going to take work, it’s going to take time, but it’s worth it in the end because you

learn not only about something but how to articulate something and tell a story about what

it is that is going on.

MALE SPEAKER: I’m starting to feel my confidence return. More than that, I’m feeling

inspired. I have my timeline, my outline, and my research. I feel like this is all leading me to

do some serious writing but I am counting on this last person to show me how. After all,

she is the one who knows about writing around here.

AMELIA BOAN: You just follow the outline. You just expand on the points and just start

writing. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you write. You can revise later. You don’t

want to worry too much about word count. It is important but at this point content is much

more important. You can write as much as you want. You can always edit it out later.

MALE SPEAKER: It sounded too easy but it also sounded just right. I had my framework

so I needed to fill it in with my own voice. The research was there to guide me too.

AMELIA BOAN: Your research is definitely important and you do want to incorporate that

into your first draft because it’s what is going to support your thesis statement for your

paper. The reason you want to use your citations even in your first draft when you’re writing

your paper is so that you don’t forget to include them in your final draft. You want to make

sure that all of your material is attributed to the proper source.

MALE SPEAKER: I could see then what she was getting at. Everything that Kena and

Aaron had talked about was getting pulled together and bonded with the writing. I had a

plan thanks to my help. At that point, I knew what to write.

AMELIA BOAN: The next step after you finish your first rough draft is just the reviewing and

the rewriting phase. What you want to make sure to do is allow yourself the time to do the

rewriting and editing and don’t be afraid to ask for help because you’re actually not alone in

this process.

No matter what time of the day or night, there are resources for you to use on your student

website. You can reach out to classmates and colleagues and you can even ask your

instructor for help.

Now that you have a final draft, go back to your assignment directions and see if you

covered all of the points.

MALE SPEAKER: I’m glad she mentioned that. I remember writing projects from way back

and how I thought they were ready. I had felt relieved, too relieved, and just turned the

projects in without checking or I had simply ran out of time. I had to remember to leave time

for this, especially for all of the final checkpoints before turning it in.

AMELIA BOAN: I had mentioned that there are some resources available on the student

website. There is an APA sample paper to help with formatting, plagiarism checker to make

sure that all of your sources are in order, and grammar and writing guides.

MALE SPEAKER: That was it. I was in a better place. Also, I wasn’t alone in it. I had found

the process and the guidance to take my paper where it needed to go. Oh yeah, I couldn’t

forget to turn it in too. I just needed to make the time to get the work done which brought

me back to some of the last thoughts my friends had shared.

KENA RAY: Don’t wait until the last minute. Don’t wait until the night before or the day it’s

due. I know you’re a busy student and sometimes that might be all the time that you can

imagine that you have to write your paper but that is why it’s important to read ahead and

work ahead.

I know from experience; I turned in so many late papers as a student. I submitted so many

unfinished articles when I was a journalist just because I didn’t give myself enough time.

Typically I need about five days at least to write my paper from brainstorming to drafting to

revising and to perfecting it at the end so that it’s a complete paper when I submit it.

DR. AARON COE: Remember you have resources to use and you’re not alone. Ask a

librarian. It’s only a click away.

AMELIA BOAN: Just remember writing is a process. It’s going to take work.

KENA RAY: It is a lot of work but it’s worth it.

MALE SPEAKER: When I set out to write my paper, I was more concerned about just

getting it done and admittedly maybe landing a good grade with little preparation, but things

are different now. Learning about process and purposes led me to write, I don’t know,

maybe for some level of posterity. What have I learned?

Well, there is power in community. I have also learned that when words are linked into

content, no matter the style or context, almost any content can tell a story of some kind

even if that story happens to be something like how atmospheric pressure affects the tides

or the difference in migration habits of specific birds.

So the story goes on but not all at once. Like most everything, successful writing involves

time and process. Now fortunately, I see the steps. It’s going to take some work and that’s

okay.

This process, it can vary from person to person. That’s the beauty of it. However, there is

one common thread, the drive to share something in words, a theory, a thought, a story,

information perhaps, methods, ideas, research, ways to improve something. Whatever it is

though, it must be written and rewritten.

There is power in process and this process is about practice. Speaking of practice, I have

often heard how practice makes perfect but what if I could live differently? Maybe I’ll

choose to believe that practice makes better. Maybe I’ll share that thought or maybe just

maybe I’ll write about it.