I am a procrastinator; I am not going to lie. Because of my lovely procrastinating ways, my writing process is not the best. When it comes time to write a paper (usually the night before), I sit down and duke it out. The hardest part for me is coming up with a topic that is interesting to me and that I am happy with. Once I find that golden topic, the rest is not so bad. What works best for me is making an outline so I am not so lost when it comes to writing the first draft. For me personally, I actually prefer handwriting my first draft, as opposed to typing it. Typing is just so daunting to me and whatever I write down seems so official. When writing on paper, I feel like I can get down more ideas. Once I have that first draft, I go ahead and type it up on the computer and polish it really well. So definitely the outline and handwritten first draft work well for me. But what doesn’t work well for me is the editing. Because I procrastinate, I don’t have the time to have other people edit it or make lots of drafts.
I found a good website that has some pointers for good editing. One of their pointers was:
“Justify yourself: Every point, statement, question, joke, even every word should have a reason to be in your piece; if it doesn’t, strike it. Be harsh — if a word or phrase does not add value to your writing, get rid of it.”
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/improve-your-writing-with-these-editing-tips.html
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6 comments:
Choosing a topic is definitely the hardest part when you are not given one. I have found that no matter how harsh I am in my editing I justify almost everything I write.
I agree, when you have to choose a topic instead of being given one it makes things harder. If you are super opinionated about everything it makes things easier, but if you're not (like me) it's definitely more time consuming.
I know how you feel when it comes to writing papers. I too usually put it off till it is inevitably necessary to be written. It is what has contributed to me not being as successful as I would like to be but it has also taught me other skills that I would have not learned if I wasn’t such a procrastinator.
I never know when something adds to my paper or not. It is very difficult for me to separate the helpful information from the extra information that only complicates my paper.
I also procratinate and when I finally get my paper written I'm so tired of it that I don't revise it as much as I should. I liked the tip you found that if a word or phrase does not add value to your writing, get rid of it. I tend to throw things in my paper that are just space fillers.
I know exactly how you feel. I love to procrastinate. I have learned though writing many papers that the best thing to do is set dates. Break the paper up into three or four sections and then set a deadline for each section. Then give yourself another day or so to just do editing. I've found that that works wonders.
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