hello and welcome to the first ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëù narrative lecture on uh the orientation to writing uh this is a a three-part uh uh lecture on the writing process and this this this first lecture is going to be looking at the stages of writing the the hopes of of these orientation uh uh lectures in writing is to help you become a better writer in graduate school maybe to prepare you what to what is to come uh for your uh you know during your graduate experience in terms of what are the the recommendations and requirements for your writing so let's just uh let's just jump right in get started uh I think one question we need to ask ourselves is how do we write what kind of a what kind of a writer are you and and what specifically is your process now I I think you probably already know but maybe you just haven't thought too much about it or maybe you have thought about you know exactly what I'm talking about but we all have a writing process and I think sometimes to be uh metacognitive about uh about the question of or the questions of where do you write when do you write and how do you write to to understand and be able to answer those questions and be able to uh to be able to follow the the where's the ones in the house in terms of you know uh um when writing a paper it is going to uh is is going to make the the uh the papers that you do write in graduate school a lot better now as to where you write when you write and how you write you know that's going to be different for everyone and and that's okay um I but I think to be able to know these things and be able to say look you know I I I write best at this time of day in this in this type of place and and and and my writing process looks like this I think to to understand that is is just going to make you a better writer uh so for example let me just go back for a second just as an example uh for uh for this is you know uh regarding myself you know where do I write I like to write at home I like to write at the uh in the kitchen on the on on the little breakfast bar I'd like to write in the morning I'm not a very good writer in the in the afternoon or even in the evening and I like to write uh you know a little bit at a time usually I'll I can write uh about a paragraph or two maybe a page uh per day and uh you know sometimes it'll be less sometimes it'll be more I know that some days I'll you know just write one or two sentences because it's it's a really difficult part of a manuscript that I'm writing for and you know and I'm okay with that whereas other days it's going to be uh more quantity than quality so I think we you know we all need to be very accepting of how when and where we write and and and just follow that and uh that formula that we have those uh those strengths that we have about you know uh knowing that uh when we uh write papers for graduate school okay so writing is a four-part process uh and we're going to go into each one of these different uh processes uh uh there's uh the the pre-writing phase the writing the revising and the proof reading uh not necessarily a linear phase you can go into uh you know different parts of these at different times uh the pre-writing uh stages uh you're not actually writing the manuscript yet uh but you're thinking and planning about you're you're beginning to generate ideas in your head uh uh you know one part of this is just living life and being aware and and um you know and and uh you know with your life experiences and awareness of of what you like to write about we all like to I think we all have certain topics that we're drawn to and I think if we can get to writing those topics writing about those topics over things that uh rather things we wouldn't I think it's going to be a lot easier uh to engage in the writing process uh so in addition talking to people talking to your professors talking sometimes to yourself sometimes to other students about your about your ideas and your topics is is also very good uh reflecting on on on these conversations reflecting about what you read journaling and even brainstorming with others and and and maybe most important is just reading about uh you know about what is out there related to the topic that you want to write

about uh when you're in the pre-writing phase you know you you want to research your your interests and your ideas uh based on uh you know you got to see what's already out there and at this point more is better you just want to take in as much as you can you w to uh find out what's in the literature you want to you know read uh you know read books read articles uh magazines newspapers doesn't really matter matter at this point it can be it can be you know peer-reviewed articles and books or it could be you know uh stuff on The Today Show in the morning or uh you know interviewing and talking with people about you know about things you know other professors or clinicians in the field uh even some you know internet Explorations you know looking at different associations like if uh you know if if you just have specific uh uh interest areas that see if there's associations that repr those interest areas uh you know you want to be careful about what you're looking at on the internet in terms of you know is it legitimate or is it not uh uh but you know you don't have to use everything that you find but it's nice to do a broad sweep uh across you know just with everything to see what is actually out there and after you've uh you know taken all that in you want to start to organize your piece and I would refer you to the structural rules of APA uh you know that APA style writing does have have uh specific guidelines on terms of how the how the paper should look in terms of a title page an abstract the main body citations referencing and you'll get all of that in other orientation uh writing orientation lectures uh also needed items within the paper yeah that's what I just said uh and then you create an outline uh for your paper and this can be a formal or informal outline and and you know a formal outline might be actually typing out and you typing it all out word and and and getting as detailed as you can with it and you know maybe even including the citations that you want to use in different in different uh you know parts of the manuscript or it could be real informal just you know just scribbling stuff down on a piece of paper and you know with with um you know informal notes related to it it it that's going to really reflect your personality if if you really need the formality of it then do that if you if you're okay with the inform formality of it you know if you can jot it down on a cocktail napkin then hey you know that that's your style and it's okay you got to own that and go with it uh and and and one thing I will say here is the more detailed the outline that you create the easier it's going to be to write the paper in general so uh you if if you if you get right down to the to the you know to the to the fine details within each within your outline and you include the citations which citations you're going to need to uh you know for for each part the the paper is almost going to write itself versus uh if you have a very open uh outline that's very vague uh that might be a little bit harder to do but once again everyone has their own style and and we have to uh you know we have to go with it so the writing phase is when you create a rough draft and you put your thoughts on paper this is the actual writing process this is when you're just going through for the first time you're putting stuff down on paper it's not going to be perfect it's going to be very far from perfect uh um and and how this occurs is going to be different for you for me for everyone sometimes people like to edit as they go and others need to edit at at at the end now when I mean edit I don't mean you know creating the final revision I'm talking about you know if you're typing out you if you're you know typing out sentences and stuff and and you misspell a word that you go back and you fix that misspelling because you can't stand the red underlining that you know that that would be on the misspelled word in the word document uh so that you know that's going to be some mild eding editing as you go versus uh you know you might want to you know change all those uh misspellings you know at the end of the day now we're all different I can't stand to to see misspellings in my paper so I have to edit as I go but you might be another way and that's that's that's fine also uh you know the writing process can be you might write one page at a time maybe a section at a time maybe you know even you're one of those gifted talented writers that can write the whole paper in one sitting but you have to figure out how much you can write in a given time and be okay with it that if you sit down and say okay I got a few hours in the morning I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna uh you I'm gonna you I'm going to be okay with writing you know a couple of few paragraphs in this manuscript and then I'm going to put it down for the day or uh you know I I actually knew this other guy who would write one page a day and he would uh he would write it pretty perfectly uh and and and in the end of the at the end of that page he would stop he would print it out and he would put it on a pile that's his style but you have to figure out what does your writing process look like uh some tips for for when you are writing you know be I would be mindful of your writing style in terms of uh your active voice versus passive voice APA style is uh does advocate for active voice um also the flow of your paper does it make sense and I'm you're going to hear me say this a couple of different times does the flow of your paper make sense in terms of does the first sentence connect to the second sentence to connect to the third sentence connect to the fourth the fifth and by that fifth sentence have you brought your reader to the point that you were trying to make and then does that paragraph connect with the next paragraph and does that paragraph once again flow down to the Third paragraph and you also want to think about Rhythm and funneling and we're going to get to those Concepts in in later lectures um also you know choosing which words you want to use within your paper uh uh you know you have to you know like you know with the nouns of counselor versus therapist you know it doesn't really matter which one you use but choose one and stick with it because if you uh uh go back and forth using counselor and then therapist then counselor then therapist the reader is going to be confused in terms of wondering is there a difference between those two nouns is a counselor different from a therapist and in your mind you might not think so but in the re reader mind they might so choosing a word to you know a noun to describe let's say your your your population that you're focused on and stay with that noun and don't deviate from that okay let's move on to the revising uh phase this is uh you know revising means to to reee something now here's the you know here's the thing you know you can you can write a you know you can write part of a manuscript or let's say you know you write a whole paper and then you want to come back and you want to revise it you're going to see that paper in a very different light the next time you come back to it and look at it and sometimes it's going to make sense to you sometimes it kind of will make sense to you and sometimes it's not going to make any sense to you at all well that's what revising is meant to do and this is probably one of the most important parts of of uh parts or uh stages of the process that you're going to revise a paper several times now the revising process never really ends but eventually you get to a place where you think okay it's good enough and you know after you revised it 10 15 20 times uh and and that's you know that's what you would want to do for a manuscript that you're going to publish for a paper that you're going to turn in you want to revise it at least five to 10 times um to make sure that there's no grammar errors that there's flow that it's APA style is is is good and and there's no mistakes um so some strategies for revision uh always step away from the manuscript for a day or two uh you know I even you know even as little as you know sometimes I take my dogs around uh the block for a walk at because I just need to clear my head and then I'll come back and I can re you know you know reee something to see does this make sense or not but really you know a day or two is really good because it kind of gives your brain a you know um a way to I guess reboot itself and you can come back and and look and see what you've been writing also you can ask colleagues or peers to review your uh your paper for you uh which is a little bit scary I I think that you know when you're asking people to uh uh to to review your uh you your writing to you know and and that can put you in a very vulnerable spot so I would I would recommend you know finding somebody that will do a good job but somebody also that you feel comfortable with revision activities uh that I I think you should be thinking about is first off is tighten up your sentences uh uh really what you want to look at is you know the less words you use in a paper the better you say more with less uh so you w to you want to delete any words from your paper that really don't need to be there uh uh because the the more words you have in your paper the more attention it's going to take the reader to read all those words to to attend to them and and to uh to to pay attention and interpret to what they mean so you wanna you want to kind of let the reader off the hook a bit by using less words to say the same amount uh that you could say you know with with more words also you have to determine if you uh choose the right word for the job you know in terms of nouns and verbs and and we're going to get into that with other lectures but you really to be mindful about the nouns and verbs that you're using and and to be very literal with it as well also uh Simplicity sake you know that you want your writing to be um uh be very simple you want it to be uh clear you you want to pay attention to your voice your the um you know active versus passive voice you know it's always better to use active voice rather than passive uh flow Rhythm funneling grammar those are all important things to think about when you're revising so an example of word choice there we have two sentences here that's uh that that we're citing but really we're looking at the verb for uh that uh that that you Ed so let's say you want to report that um that Stevens and' 08 believe that and then and then you know you have the quote there um how do we know what Stevens believed you know that is a that that would be a poor choice verb because that that's nothing you know we don't know his the inner workings of Steven's mind so we want to choose something that might be a little bit more uh appropriate such as Stevens reported you could say step's noted you could say Stephen uh uh Stephens uh described so think about the verbs that you're using in terms of you know are they the best verbs for the job uh another one and this is just what I talked about with um using uh word choices with counselors versus therapists that in the first paragraph if if you if you wrote that counselors must remain mindful of the actions they take within the counseling session if therapists fail to practice ethically ultimately the clients will suffer now the thing is is if if you know if if you use counselors and therapists interchangeably it's going to be confusing to the reader but if you pick one as what we did down here it's going to be much more clear to uh to the reader in terms of who who you're talking to or or writing about okay the last part is the proof reading stage uh this is this is after you revised it and revised it revised it so many times you can barely stand uh to read your paper again most if not all you know I'm gonna say most of the mistakes are probably out of your paper now we want to just proof read to make sure that things like your APA style is correct uh that all parts of the manuscripts are present and then one more time just for you know just for uh good luck you re- revise the last revision okay well this has been uh the first lecture on the writing process that talked about the four stages of writing and what I'd like to do you know I'd really like to encourage you to think about uh what we what we talked about in the beginning you know where do you write when do you write and how do you write and and and how do those three questions enter into the the the pre-writing stage the the writing stage the revision stage and also the proof reading stage if you can start to really put these together for you and to see how these things work for you then it's going to make your life easier as you move through graduate school to um you know to to be able to you know when when needing to write a paper whether it's a research paper whether it's a reflection paper or even uh a discussion post okay I hope this has been helpful to you have a good day