Kylie Andersen

Bad Writing Paper

Writing Process Makes Good Writers

A bad idea about writing is the idea that there are good writers and there are bad writers.

In Jill Parrott’s article “Some People are Just Born Good Writers”, she argues that writing is a

skill that is developed over time and is a practiced skill. Many professors and professionals in the

field of writing forget that writing skills develop over time and that they should be helping young

writers by encouraging them and providing constructive criticism. They are there to help students

learn and grow with their writing and are not there to compare their writing to other students or

writers in general works. An important concept that professors need to stress to their students is

the writing process takes time to learn and perfect and there is never a perfect copy of your

writing. A better way to view writing is that a writer is made through persevering and working

their way through the writing process.

In the article “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers” Jill Parrott states, “the practices

needed to become adept at writing are criminalized, and inexperienced authors are often

punished for being inexperienced” (Parrott 2017, 72). By punishing writers for being

inexperienced, writers are being discouraged from writing because they are being told that their

writing needs to be more like the experienced writer’s paper. Instead of punishing writers for

their inexperience, professors should provide feedback that is constructive and not feedback that

just points to the errors of the paper. Professors should go through with the students that even

after students get their work back that they should go through the paper and make improvements

even if it is not for a grade and keep getting feedback to improve on the same piece and writing
pieces in the future. Parrott has heard her colleagues complain about the writing they receive

from their students and she states that they are there to help the students with their skill and they

should want to encourage their students to improve (Parrott 2017, 72). Professors are there to

help students improve their writings and the professors should start by walking their students

through the writing process because it is key to coming out with a product that they are pleased

to share. Inexperience writers need the feedback and instruction that professors or experienced

writers must help them through the writing process and getting their skills developed. Without

the help of an experienced writer they may continue to make the same mistakes without the

proper feedback.

Qualities that good writers have are perseverance and practice. Good writers “take

criticism on the chin and say “thank you” to helpful feedback; they listen to both the external and

internal voices that drive them. And they use it to make their work better” (Goins). Taking

constructive criticism and applying it to improve your writing is the key to be a good writer.

Experienced writers do not write one draft and summit it; they write one and have another person

read it and critic it. Once they get it back, they edit their work and summit it to another person to

read it and improve it some more after they get it back. This process is all part of the writing

process, writers need external feedback with their own editing to form the best work they can get

and it takes many steps to reach the point where they feel confident in showing off their piece.

By using the writing process, the aim is to get to the final product that the writer is confident in

and not reaching perfection because there is no such thing as perfection in writing. A piece of

writing can always be improved and evolved even after completion. A good writer is not a

“perfectionist, but they’ve learned the discipline of shipping, of putting their work out there for

the world to see” (Goins). Good writers understand that after a certain point their writing needs
to be seen by others in order to show off their work and that point is when they themselves are

confident in their work.

Students learn best from their own mistakes. In the article “Teaching Basic Writing: An

Alternative to Basic Skills” David Bartholomae explains “the recognition that the errors in his

writing fall into patterns, that those patterns have meaning in the context of his own individual

struggle with composing” (Bartholomae 1979, 86). Learning from your own writing shows the

errors that your writing has and by establishing the errors it is easy to keep aware of them when

you are revising the paper or writing a new paper. By knowing error patterns to look out for in

the writing process will be more productive because you can focus on other parts of the revision

process then fixing the same mistakes over again. The writing process is important in catching

these patterns and helps students improve their writing. Bartholomae states that “the key to an

effective pedagogy is sequence of instruction that allows students to experience the possibilities

for contextualizing a given writing situation in their own terms, terms that would allow them to

initiate and participate in the process…” (Bartholomae 1979, 89). Using a students own writing

will allow them to engage in the writing process to help them improve on how they write their

papers and revise them. By giving them this opportunity, it allows them to see the sequence in

which writers go through to get their final product that they want to share with the world. By

teaching them with their own work, students gain more experience out of it and have a better

understanding of the writing process.

In conclusion, professors and experienced writers should be encouraging students and

teaching them how to navigate the writing process because writing is a skill that must be

developed. The writing process may seem long, however, with perseverance and working

through the process will help writers develop the skills to becoming a good writer.
 Reference

Bartholomae, D. (2005). Teaching Basic Writing: An Alternative to Basic Skills. Writing on the

Margins, 157–176. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4039-8439-5_9

Goins, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://goinswriter.com/the-difference-between-good-writers-

and-bad-writers/

Parrot, J. (2017). Some people are just born good writers. In C. Ball & D. M. Loewe (Eds.), Bad

ideas about writing (pp. 71-75). Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Libraries.