Overview

Books and magazine articles look neat. The process of creating them, however, can be messy. Writers often get started by scribbling and sketching for ideas. They use their notes to help them create a rough draft. As they revise, writers may cut parts of their draft and write new material. Before they publish their work, writers review their writing again to correct any remaining errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Careful writers go through all these steps in order to create text that their readers will understand easily.

Writing does not have to be perfect on the first try. Writing is a process that involves these stages:

• prewriting—finding a topic to write about
• drafting—writing about the topic
• revising—improving the draft
• editing—correcting errors
• publishing—sharing the work with others