1. Read and Gather

Step one of the writing process is the very beginning of all writing. It is reading & listening and looking and feeling and tasting and LEARNING. it is asking questions and finding out things. It is gathering info. In other words, it is what curios people do every day! It is also jotting down ideas for topics, making lists of interesting info. that you might want to find out more about, or taking notes from what you have read.

2. Think and Plan

Step two is organizing all of the ideas that you have been learning and deciding what you want to share w/ someone else. Ask:
For whom will I write this?
What kind of paper is this gonna be?
What will go in this paper?
In what order will I put everything?

3. Write and rewrite

Revising your work is about making “big picture” changes. You might remove whole sections, rewrite entire paragraphs, and add in information which you’ve realized the reader will need. Everyone needs to revise – even talented writers.
The revision stage is sometimes summed up with the A.R.R.R. (Adding, Rearranging, Removing, Replacing) approach:
Adding
What else does the reader need to know? If you haven’t met the required word-count, what areas could you expand on? This is a good point to go back to your prewriting notes – look for ideas which you didn’t use.
Rearranging
Even when you’ve planned your piece, sections may need rearranging. Perhaps as you wrote your essay, you found that the argument would flow better if you reordered your paragraphs. Maybe you’ve written a short story that drags in the middle but packs in too much at the end.
Removing
Sometimes, one of your ideas doesn’t work out. Perhaps you’ve gone over the word count, and you need to take out a few paragraphs. Maybe that funny story doesn’t really fit with the rest of your article.
Replacing
Would more vivid details help bring your piece to life? Do you need to look for stronger examples and quotations to support your argument? If a particular paragraph isn’t working, try rewriting it.
Tip: If you’re not sure what’s working and what isn’t, show your writing to someone else. This might be a writers’ circle, or just a friend who’s good with words. Ask them for feedback. It’s best if you can show your work to several people, so that you can get more than one opinion.

Check and Polish

The editing stage is distinct from revision, and needs to be done after revising. Editing involves the close-up view of individual sentences and words. It needs to be done after you’ve made revisions on a big scale: or else you could agonize over a perfect sentence, only to end up cutting that whole paragraph from your piece.
When editing, go through your piece line by line, and make sure that each sentence, phrase and word is as strong as possible. Some things to check for are:
Have you used the same word too many times in one sentence or paragraph? Use a thesaurus to find alternatives.
Are any of your sentences hard to understand? Rewrite them to make your thoughts clear.
Which words could you cut to make a sentence stronger? Words like “just” “quite”, “very”, “really” and “generally” can often be removed.
Are your sentences grammatically correct? Keep a careful look out for problems like subject-verb agreement and staying consistent in your use of the past, present or future tense.
Is everything spelt correctly? Don’t trust your spell-checker – it won’t pick up every mistake. Proofread as many times as necessary.
Have you used punctuation marks correctly? Commas often cause difficulties. You might want to check out the Daily Writing Tips articles on punctuation.
Tip: Print out your work and edit on paper. Many writers find it easier to spot mistakes this way.

Share Your Results

The final step of the writing process is publishing. This means different things depending on the piece you’re working on.
Bloggers need to upload, format and post their piece of completed work.
Students need to produce a final copy of their work, in the correct format. This often means adding a bibliography, ensuring that citations are correct, and adding details such as your student reference number.
Journalists need to submit their piece (usually called “copy”) to an editor. Again, there will be a certain format for this.
Fiction writers may be sending their story to a magazine or competition. Check guidelines carefully, and make sure you follow them. If you’ve written a novel, look for an agent who represents your genre. (There are books like Writer’s Market, published each year, which can help you with this.)
Tip: Your piece of writing might never be published. That’s okay – many bestselling authors wrote lots of stories or articles before they got their first piece published. Nothing that you write is wasted, because it all contributes to your growth as a writer.
Conclusion

The five stages of the writing process are a framework for writing well and easily. You might want to bookmark this post so that you can come back to it each time you start on a new article, blog post, essay or story: use it as a checklist to help you.
If you have any tips about the writing process, or if you want to share your experiences, tell us in the comments!