My Writing Process

In the past, some people have been curious as to the process I use when writing my papers. I can hardly claim that I'm a good writer, and I don't think my papers, academic or otherwise are really the best things to be basing your own writing on. However, I do have a process that I think makes my writing better than it would be had I not used it. That is to say, when I don't really follow this process the whole way through, my writing is tangibly worse. :)

I like to start my writing with a good idea of what sort of process I am going to go through. I use the following process when I am writing any academic paper or a paper that will have scholarly research in it:

1. Document the topic and idea, thesis, and maybe an abstract
2. Generate an outline that covers the flow of the paper and the important elements
   • I like to get to almost a paragraph resolution in my lowest points,
   • Try to emphasize the important elements, and not write everything out longhand
3. Write a first draft that includes the body of the text, rough citations and references including figures and tables.
4. Generate a reverse outline from the first draft;
5. Use the reverse outline and the first draft to do a paragraph level rewrite
   • Focus on paragraph flow and themes
   • Do not worry about the internal paragraph structures
   • Create and compose all the figures and tables
6. Do a third draft
   • Focus on sentence level reconstruction and adjustment
   • Paragraphs should be in place, so it's really a matter of making sure that each paragraph makes sense in its own right and flows well internally.
   • Insert the references and finalize all the cross references, figures, tables, &c.
7. Do the final paper
   • focus on typos, small editorial issues
   • Find any other mistakes and correct any last minutes finishing touches
8. Typeset the paper
   • Layout the master pages, select fonts, styles, &c.
   • Insert the main text, references
   • Insert the footnotes
   • Drop in the tables, figures, and other out-of-band elements
   • Adjust page wrapping and breaks, figure out the right placement of things