Overview

Writing is a process. Producing professional and technical writing is no different from any other type of writing. Whether you realize it or not, every person who writes has a unique writing process, and to become a better writer, especially in professional settings, you must understand your own process. The goal of understanding your process is to maximize your productivity as a writer and successfully meet the expectations and deadlines of your organization.

For example, a writer might generate initial brainstorming and drafting questions the old- fashioned way using a pen and paper, then transfer those ideas to an outline with some maps or diagrams. After brainstorming and drafting, she may move to the computer to write an initial draft. At this point in the process, she allots extra time to editing and revising, because her initial drafts are clunky, out of order, and generally a hot mess.

Understanding your writing process, which may or may not be anything like the one above, allows you to efficiently plan the amount of time it will take you do complete a project, or to compress the process into a short period of time, when necessary. Writers who know their process will go through the same steps to complete a project whether they have a month or an hour to do the job.

What you need to remember as you discover your process is that, while every writer’s process is different, all writers will go through the same basic steps. And these basic stages go back (again) to ancient Greece. Aristotle broke down the writing process into five stages or canons that can be adapted for the modern writing process.