Drake Monster Lecture Notes

Developing and Revising Assignment Drafts

1) Every time you have a relevant thought, write it down; do not wait until you are in front of a computer and "working on your paper" because by then you will have forgotten it.

2) Break up the process: a decent short paper usually takes 8 or more hours to write (larger ones often take weeks, months or years); spread those hours out over weeks, and then still expect to stay up all night before it's due.

3) Every time you sit down to work on the paper, if you haven't already thought of what you are going to write, do this:

a) Reread the assignment, even if you've reread it half a dozen times.

b) Make notes on the assignment sheet:

i) what have you completed?

ii) what have you forgotten to work on at all?

iii) what are you confused about and in need of help on?

iv) note in writing any ideas that pop into your head while reading it.

4) After reading the assignment sheet, begin reading your latest draft out loud, with a pen in your hand. Make editorial and revisions as you go; fix mistakes, change words, write in new sentences, write entire paragraphs on the back of the page, draw arrows to move stuff around, and generally make the dang thing bleed (a red pen helps). Note: the main thing here is to improve existing and develop new ideas, not to edit.

5) Only after all that open the paper up on the computer and begin entering the changes you made on the hard copy. As you enter the changes into the computer, run with and develop any new ideas/changes that pop into your head.

6) When you are done entering the changes and have run out of new ideas to develop, save that draft on disc and print it out. Go back to 3b and start again.

7) If and whenever you feel stuck:

a) Go to 3a or 3b.

b) Talk to someone about the paper or, better, let someone else read it and then talk to them, or, best, read it out loud to them and then discuss it.

c) Switch from computer to handwriting and/or freewrite; simply generate ideas without worrying about whether you'll use them or not.

d) Realize you should have read the assigned homework and taken notes (realize your actual problem is that you don't know the answers and thus have nothing worth saying).

e) Rework your organization: make and revise outlines.