Jasueth Landaverde

Prof. Doutherd
English 5M
Research Paper
According to author Anne Lamott, all good writing comes from shitty drafts, and good
writing requires you to have drafts. Mike Rose expresses how in his experiment he was able to
detect how students were taught how to write, and how it affected their abilities to express/share
their ideas in a paper. Allowing other to revise your drafts, allows you to challenge your own
writing and grow as a writer. Revisions, lead to greater drafts, and greater drafts allows you to
improve your writing skills. When it comes to writing, the most useful component to use is
writing drafts rather than following rigid guidelines, it allows you to produce a clear writing piece,
add more to speak about in your paper, and ultimately enhance your skills as a writer in general.
During the process of writing, creating more than one draft helps you construct and ideal
paper youd want to turn in. Lamott in Article titled, Shitty First Drafts states, Almost all good
writing begins with terrible first efforts. Start by getting something--anything---down on paper. A
friend of mine says that the first draft is the downdraft--you just get it down. The second draft is
the up draft--you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third
draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if its loose or cramped or
decayed. (Pg 572) Doing several drafts on one paper helps you clarify and change things so
that your essay comes out the way you want, and youre able to prove your point in a way that
the audience is indulged with your writing.
Writing within strict guidelines limits your ideas while you are trying to get your point
across. In article titled, Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A cognitive
Analysis of Writers Block, the author mentions, You must always make three or more points in
an essay. If the essay has less, then its not strong. Laurel has been taught this rule both in high
school and in her first college class; no wonder, then, that she accepted its validity. (538) Most
students are taught the same writing structure in high school, Intro, 3 body paragraphs which
contains 3 main points, and a conclusion. What teachers are not aware is that it limits the
student's to additionally talk about more points. Eventually it affects students in a way where
theyre not able to broaden their writing once they get to college. While on the other hand,
writing multiple drafts actually encourages you to add more to your writing.
Drafts don't usually consist of revised comments on your own paper, instead one
common beneficial thing to do it to ask for peers to review your writing. Revising what you have
so far so that theyre able to help add or delete ideas that will make their essay better. In his
article, Richard Straub mentions, He offers praise, encouragement, and direction. Whats more,
he pushes the writer to do more than he has already done, to extend the boundaries of his
examination. Straubs article demonstrates how one student revised and commented on his
peers draft, and added comments that would ultimately lead and motivate him to write another
draft that was better than the last. Meaning constructing multiple drafts and allowing others to
revise them challenges your own thoughts about what youre writing. It helps you seek other
ideas, and all together makes you into a better writer.
Though there are ways to help you write your essays, the usage of writing multiple drafts
is one that is highly recommendable. It offers a variety of benefits like being able to expand your
writing in a way that it all connects to each other to make it clear for your audience. It also,
endures your writing within the revision that you and the additional comments and suggestions
your peers offer. It constructs your paper into one youd want to turn in for a grade. While on the
other hand, writing along restricted guidelines only limits you to write what you truly think, and
often leads you to make whole paper weak.