Writing the First Draft

The previous tip provided you three important elements for writing: the subject and issue (the competition theme and goal), the intended audience (judges of the competition), and your ideas and attitude about the issue (brain dump). These three things together create the focus of your paper. 

Now that you have completed the brain dump or pre-writing exercise, what’s next? Time to write the first draft of your paper.

Follow these steps to help complete your first draft:

1. Find about 40 to 50 minutes for this exercise.
2. Read all of your pre-writes (brain dump) and any other notations (highlights, doodles, notes to remember, etc.) you made during the first five days.
3. Next, set them aside, away from your reach. Do NOT refer to it during the writing of your first draft.
4. Either using a computer or writing on paper, write quickly for 40 minutes to produce a complete draft with a beginning, middle, and an end. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar; you will have time to revise the draft later.
5. If you wrote out your draft, consider typing it on a typewriter or on a computer for the next step: revision.
6. To be able to revise, you will need to have someone look over your draft for content, but not to edit your spelling, punctuation, or grammar. Ask a teacher, tutor, parent, or all three to review and comment on your initial draft. Ask them to use only 3-4 of the following comments:

Add an example. Good example. This is why it is a good example: Add details here. Good details. This is why these details are good: Write more about this. This sounds honest. This part might be left out. You’ve lost me.

Once this is done, you are ready for the next exercise on revision.