Writing the Rough Draft

A rough draft is supposed to be that - rough. It is the first attempt to put your thoughts into words. Thoughts are often jumbled; most of us are easily distracted (most of the time!); many of us think of what we should have said after the opportunity to say it is past.

What this says to me is that good writing should be done in stages. The worst thing a writer can do is to try and write a final draft at a single sitting. It just puts too much pressure on the writer to choose the right thoughts.

So what sort of stages or steps should a writer use?

All the little decisions that a writer concerning word choice, how the writing should look, what should be said are based on two things: Purpose and Audience.

Purpose: Why are you writing this? Read over the Grading Rubric and the Purpose statement for the assignment. If your answer is still, "To get a good grade," realize that many qualities of a good grade are grammatical (spelling, etc.). Those are things that are best looked at when the final draft is being composed, not at the rough draft stage. Purpose at the rough draft stage has more to do with "What do I want to say in this essay?"

Audience: Who are you writing to? Yes, you are writing to me, but I may be a rather scary audience - - I have the power of grades. Sometimes it helps to try to explain things to someone less threatening, like a friend or a classmate.