The Writing Process and Essay Structure

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing essential writing concepts, prewriting strategies, paragraph and essay structures, and assignment planning based on lecture notes.

Writing Process

A series of steps that most writers follow to get from thinking about a topic to preparing the final draft.

Writing Journal

A log of your thinking, including thoughts, experiences, and reactions to reading, used as a resource to look for ideas for assignments.

Versioning System

A file organization method created on a computer to keep old draft versions in case you want to review them later.

Writers Block

A moment when you do not know how to begin writing or do not know what to write.

Freewriting

Writing whatever comes to mind in order to generate ideas, without worrying about grammar or spelling.

Focused Freewriting

Choosing one specific idea from your initial freewriting and developing it further.

Brainstorming

Listing whatever comes to mind on a topic in order to come up with ideas.

Discussing

Talking about ideas with friends, family, and classmates to help generate more ideas.

Clustering

Making a visual map of related key words and ideas to see how they relate to one another.

Questioning

Asking Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? to generate writing ideas.

Paragraph

A group of sentences about one central idea.

Topic Sentence

The component of a paragraph that introduces the subject and the writer's attitude.

Body (of a Paragraph)

The component of a paragraph that gives details supporting the topic sentence.

Concluding Sentence

The sentence that ends a paragraph.

Essay

A group of paragraphs about one central idea.

Introduction (of an Essay)

The opening part of an essay that gets the reader interested and includes the thesis statement.

Body Paragraphs (of an Essay)

Paragraphs that support the essay's main idea.

Conclusion (of an Essay)

The final section of an essay that restates the thesis and main points and gives the essay a proper ending.

Four Steps of Exploring

The initial exploratory process consisting of Topic (What will I write about?), Audience (Who will read it?), Purpose (Why am I writing?), and Exploring strategies (How can I generate ideas?).

Topic

What you are writing about.

Audience

The people who will read your writing.

Purpose

The reason you are writing.

General Purpose

The broad objective of writing, categorized as entertain, persuade, or inform.

Entertain

A writing purpose focused on telling a story or making the reader interested.

Persuade

A writing purpose focused on convincing the reader of your opinion.

Inform

A writing purpose focused on explaining or giving information.

Specific Purpose

The exact accomplishment or goal you want to achieve through your writing.