My Writing Process

What type of writer do you consider yourself to be?

Out of the four different types of writers Dr. Lisa Ede listed, I would consider myself to be sequential composer. This is seen true when I carefully plan and write each paragraph of an essay, followed by rereading and revising the final piece. It is through these many methods of a sequential composer, which reflect who I am as a writer.

Does your writing process include several of the above approaches? If so, which ones?

Several of the above approaches can be seen in my writing process. This includes dedicating an equal amount of time to planning, writing and revising my essay. In addition, I make notes and outlines, which I heavily rely upon, help structure my ideas for a given essay. It is after creating the final essay that a thorough amount of time is put into rereading and revising every paragraph of the final essay.

Does your writing process seem to be successful? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your approach?

Although my writing process has overall helped me be successful, there are times where it has not succeeded.  Weaknesses in the past involved spending more effort in the outlining stages, which declines with each following stage of the writing process. Another weakness to this approach is that I will sometimes rush certain stages due to limited amount of time. A strength of this approach is that it has helped create essays which follow a organized structure. Furthermore, by referring to written notes, all ideas can be incorporated to the essay.

Do you think it might be beneficial for you to try a different approach? Why or why not?

Perhaps it would be beneficial to try a different approach. This could be with a heavy planner approach. With a better plan, this could in effect prevent previous weaknesses experienced with a sequential composer. Having a developed plan will potentially solve time management issues, and benefit in being effective in all stages of writing. 

Cummings, Philip, "Essays 31/365" 1/31/2013 via Flickr. Creative Commons License