 Hello everyone, this is Mr. P. On today's lesson, we're going to take a look at stages of writing. Pre-writing, developing thesis, drafting, revising, and editing. We're talking about opinion essay. So, let's get started. Planning and drafting essays Experienced writers understand that writing is a process. Effective writers know they cannot do everything at once, so they generate, organize, develop, and clarify their ideas. There are four basic recurrent stages. The first one, pre-writing, the second one, developing thesis, the third one, drafting, and the last one, revising. So, let's analyze each one. This is the initial stage of the writing process. Consider what is expected of you in terms of your intended audience, purpose, and context. Start exploring your topic, do research, keep a journal, etc. Find an issue Analyze the assignment Look for keywords, argue for, take a stand, write a controversial issue. These words will tell you what you're writing. Pay attention to its length specified, due date, formatting, and other requirements. Explore issues you find interesting by making lists. Consider which issues on your list you might evaluate. Do research. Choose an issue that people can disagree on. Analyze your chosen issue. Think about issues that are debated in your community, for example. Consider your audience's expectation. Ask yourself, what do your readers likely know about the issue? What views do your readers likely have about the issue? Do your readers likely agree or disagree with your position? Step number two, developing thesis. Develop reasons and write a thesis. Take a definite position, answer why. Develop reasons by considering whether you can argue from a definition, compare or contrast, consider good and bad effects, or refute objections. Support your reasons by making observations and finding facts, statistics, and statements from authorities. Can you find facts, statistics, statements from authorities to support your reasons? And the last step is to write a working thesis. You must ask yourself if it's arguable. It must be disputable. Let's talk about brainstorming now. When you're writing a non-research paper and you know something about your topic already, try the following brainstorming techniques. Number one, free writing. Number two, looping. And number three, focused free writing. Let's talk about each one of them. So the first one, free writing. Give yourself a defined amount of time and after writing a topic keyword at the top of the page, write whatever comes to mind. Don't worry about grammar or punctuation at this stage. You can scribble notes, draw pictures, whatever helps you to come up with ideas. The second technique, looping. Review what you have written, looking for what you think it is the most interesting point. Highlight the point to free write exclusively on that point. Looping can help you explore beyond the surface of ideas to find connections and to develop deeper insights into your topic. The third technique is the focused free writing. Once you have some key ideas of interest, you might try focusing your free writing. When you do focus free writing, you begin with a point or a specific question. You might analyze one of the ideas or questions that you discovered while free writing. So now let's talk about the third point that is drafting. Write a draft. Introduce the issue and give the necessary background. Think about how readers will view you, the writer. Anticipate an address opposing viewpoints. Explain why your position is preferable. Make counter arguments if necessary. Examine the facts on which a competing claim is based. Avoid summarizing and choose a title that will interest readers. Let's take a look at an example. This is an example on how to map your ideas. So in your introduction, you would use a question. What are the limits on free speech? You can start by listing the cases. Number one middle school in Alberta. Number two border. Number three university of Calgary. Then we can write the outcomes of cases. Bending outcomes. The University of Calgary going to court November 2009. Next we can list specifics in common. No shouting or banners. No disruption. No obscenity. Public property. And then compare other cases. You can begin by writing the common factors in the cases because they would be the core of your paper. You would build the rest of the paper around these four factors. So the last stage would be revising. So on this last stage you would need to ask yourself these questions. Does your position argument fulfill the assignment? Is your claim arguable and focused? Are your reasons adequate? Are your reasons supported with evidence? Is your organization effective? Is the writing project visually effective? Did you or someone else proofread it carefully one last time? Before printing your copy make sure your paper meets all formatting requirements. Do not forget to write the work cited at the end of your paper. I suggest watching my MLA video lesson. So that's it for today. If you have any questions about this lesson please type them under this video lesson. If you haven't subscribed to my channel please do. If you liked the lesson hit on the like button and you may share the lesson if you liked it. Notes and examples were taken from Fagley and Rubens writing a journey. I suggest purchasing a copy of this book. It is a great resource for your writing. Until next time, bye-bye.