process of essay

CSA-Archive/iStock Vectors/Getty Images How-to essays, also known as process essays, are like recipes; they provide instruction for carrying out a procedure or task. You can write a how-to essay about any procedure that you find interesting-as long as your topic fits the teacher's assignment. The first step of writing your how-to essay is brainstorming. Draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper to make two columns. Label one column materials and the other column steps. Next, begin to empty your brain. Write down every item and every step you can think of that will be needed to carry out your task. Don't worry about trying to keep things in order yet. Just empty your head. Once you've noted every fact you can think of, start to number your steps on your brainstorming page. Just jot a number beside each item/step. You may need to erase and scribble a few times to get the order right. It's not a neat process. Your next job is to write an outline. Your essay could contain a numbered list (like you are reading now) or it could be written as a standard narrative essay. If you are instructed to write a step-by-step without using numbers, your essay should contain all the elements of any other essay assignment: an introductory paragraph, a body, and a conclusion. The difference is that your introduction will explain why your topic is important or relevant. For example, your paper about How to Wash a Dog would explain that dog hygiene is important for your pet's good health. Your first body paragraph should contain a list of necessary materials. For example: The equipment you will need depends somewhat on the size of your dog. At the very minimum, you will need dog shampoo, a large towel, and a container large enough to hold your dog. And, of course, you will need a dog. The next paragraphs should contain instructions for following steps in your process, as enumerated.
Writing is an acquired skill which is learned through practice and hard work.  The procedures that writers follow, their writing process, varies from writer to writer and from task to task.  Additionally, the writing process is not a linear, step-by-step procedure, but a recursive method in which the writer often changes his mind, rewrites, reorganizes and rethinks his strategies before producing a text.  However, some areas that all successful writers turn their attention to are pre-writing, writing, and revising. Stage 1:  Prewriting consists of: generating ideas, including reading and research establishing purpose identifying audience ordering ideas During the prewriting stage, writers scribble notes, make lists, and some write pages and pages of sentences because they are capturing the ideas.  For the kinesthetic learner, this stage is demanding and usually the writer produces a great amount of text. Stage 2:  Writing consists of: creating body paragraphs following the pre-writing order creating introductory and concluding paragraphs During this stage, the writer reads over all the text and chooses the ideas, sentences, and paragraphs that best express the concepts to be included in the essay.  For many writers, this means paring down the text produced in the pre-writing stage, sometimes by half or more.  Usually many of the ideas and sentences produced in the prewriting stage just don't work in the final essay, so they are discarded.  This is also the organizational stage where the writer makes decisions on the best order for the ideas.  Most writers create their introductions and conclusions at this stage.  Doing so ensures that the content of the introduction and conclusion accurately frame the ideas in the body paragraphs. Stage 3:  Revising consists of: rewriting from the reader's point of view analyzing and changing paragraph and sentence organization.
Exercise: In this video, we will discuss how to write a paragraph or essay.