Main Stages Of The Report Writing Process

Many students get caught up in the ideas they are writing about instead of worrying about the actual process. Once you know the actual steps of the writing process, you can write about practically anything with ease. Regardless of what you write, the process is always the same. After you master the process, many of the steps become automatic, so you no longer have to think about them and you can just write.

Step One: Idea Gathering (Prewriting)

This is where you begin to think about what you are going to write. You have received an assignment and you need to decide what to write. This is the part where you might start to look online for ideas or ask your professor questions about an appropriate topic.

Step Two: Outlining (Rough Organizing)

Here is where you begin to roughly decide how you will organize your report. You will draft your thesis statement and the topic ideas for each paragraph. You probably do not have all of the details yet, but those can be filled in a bit later.

Step Three: Rough Drafting (Writing the Paper)

The keyword is “rough” because this is the spot where you can make mistakes and not be penalized. You use your outline to stay organized when you write and you fill in the details. You craft your introduction and conclusion, as if you were writing the entire paper. When you are finished drafting, you have the whole paper completed.

Step Three, Four, and Five: Drafting, Editing, and Polishing

In the days before computer word processing, students would separate these steps, because it was much more difficult to edit and polish a handwritten draft. Now, because of word processing and the ease of editing and revising, these steps tend to intersect with each other. Many student who write their papers on a computer will editing as they draft. They also continue to edit, even if they are in the polishing stage.

When you drafting, editing, and polishing, pay attention to the suggestions that the computer gives to you. If a word or sentence is highlighted, look at it and fix it. It is a good idea to know what you are fixing, because some word processing programs offer grammar suggestions that are actually wrong. Always check your spelling and be sure your final polished copy is perfect before you submit it for grading.

 
 
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