Question

3. Remember that the writing process is a recursive process, and your first draft of an essay is rarely your last. Think about how you could improve the draft if you continued the writing process with revision and editing.

Answer 1

Writing as a Process : Writing is Recursive
Writing is a process. Writers don’t just sit down and produce an essay, well-formed and
ideal in every respect-we work at the stages and steps. But writing is not only a process: it’s
also a measure of learning and your thinking, and so the process has to stop at various points so that your measure can be taken. Good academic writing is both a process and a product.
Writing is Recursive. “Recursive” simply means that each step you take in your writing
process will feed into other steps: after you’ve drafted an essay, for instance, you’ll go do a bit of verification of some of your facts—and if you discover that you’ve gotten something wrong, you’ll go back to the draft and fix it. But doing that may well require you to loop back to a different section of your essay to rewrite or to take it out altogether-and that revision, in turn, might mean that you need to rethink your organization. At some point, you know that the work is done.
Prior to writing, you will probably be reading. At some point in your course work, there
will be an assignment. No matter your situation, expect to do a lot of thinking, reading, and
rethinking during the drafting and revision process.

Know the Right Moves for College Writing
To be successful at college-level writing, students need to be willing to learn the new
moves. Writing for the demands of college is challenging, but it can be a little easier if students understand up front that readers at the college level expect to see certain skills be
demonstrated.

• Know what a college-level essay looks like
• Keep the focus of your work narrow
• Know how to build a thesis statement and a topic sentence
• Introduce your sources with a purpose
• Show relationships between ideas
• Use sophisticated punctuation

Know What a College Level Essay Looks Like
While professors at Stetson have specific expectations for what their students turn in,
students may not always understand the depth for the expectations. Some professors will
show examples of what they want; some will not. In general, while each of your professors will provide a clear assignment, students may benefit from seeing an outline of what that
assignment might entail.
The key differences are several:

• The need for a clear and directive thesis statement;
• The expectation of substantial consideration of other viewpoints and perspectives;
• The use of sources to develop and explore a point made by the writer (not just to support the point itself); and
• The need for the conclusion to do something other than summarize.