Chapter 7 - Planning and Drafting
By Kristen and Matt
Chapter 7 discusses the strategies writers use as they explore, plan, and draft documents, presentations, and visuals. Experienced writers recognize the importance of researching their subject as they plan the approach they will take when organizing their project. Skillful communicators begin by asking about the context, the subject, and the document, presentation or the visual itself. Figure 7.1 on page 229 in book gives a good visual to asking yourself questions in your planning of a document. Once you are confident in the approach you would like to use, branch out to give yourself a few more options. Problem-solving processes allow your work to be much easier. Burnett discusses strategies including Brainstorming, 5 W's plus H (who, what, when, where, why, and how), cause-and-effect analysis, and synectics (bringing together diverse people and ideas). Insufficient project planning is one of the major reasons that projects fail to pan out. Because of this, professional often turn to time-and-project management tools. Planning is also usually more productive if it is collaborative. One of the more difficult aspects of planning is making sure it is logical. In order to make a project logical, noticing the problems that accompany it is useful. Using data from authorities, presenting facts without drawing inferences, drawing inferences, and establishing causal relationships are all problems that need to be recognized. One of the most frequent relationships employed in technical documents, oral presentations, or visuals establishes causes and resulting effects. Your audience can be misled by several kinds of poorly drawn causal relationships, including a condition not being sufficient cause, variables not being correlated. One thing to avoid in your communication is density. Sometimes your draft will focus on a single topic and has the appropriate structure, but is difficult to read because you have packed the ideas so tightly that the connections are obscured. Use headings and subheadings to identify key sections and illustrate objects and concepts to aid understanding to avoid density. Information in drafts that follow given-new structures is typically easier to read and remember. In addition, given-new structures make the relationships between ideas clear to the audience.
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20 comments:
The writing process is different for everyone. Some people are able to get their thoughts and ideas down on paper quicker, while others take a while to plan everything out. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I tend to plan as I am writing. While reading through Chapter 7, I thought to myself that all this planning seems a bit over the top. When all is said and done, it would seem that the planning is 2/3 of the work and the writing is just 1/3. But I suppose that when writing or working on a presentation, everyone does some sort of planning, drafting and organizing.
I thought this chapter was very good. Personally I plan out pretty much everything that I do. When I wake up in the morning I prefer to know what I am doing for that day and about what time I’m doing it. I think this allows me to be much more productive than if I just did everything as a spontaneous project. Hopefully I can start to get fairly good at this considering I would like to be a Project Manager at a construction company. In fact, this summer I will be on the management team as an Assistant Project Manager. I’m sure I’ll have to come back to my notes from this chapter.
When I write a draft for any sort of paper I find it always helpful to write an outline. Having an outline always clears my mind and organizes my ideas in way to make me at ease during the writing process. The outline is good to have in planning what to write down as I generate ideas. To me it sort of like a blue print to writing. I liked how this chapter mentions about not being too dense in a draft, I thought it was a really helpful tip. Having heading, subheading on a paper helps alot in organizing all the key points and ideas in paper for the reader and yourself to understand. I usually hate reading things about one topic that seem so dense and long that I could hardly make sense of because it so obscured when the ideas are packed so tightly.
I thought that this summary was very well written. I agree with Reagan, when I have to write a paper for any class, I have to prepare for it. I write an outline because I think that it is very useful to write down my thoughts and sort them out before I write my paper instead of just writing down anything. I think that it is very important to research your information so you know what you have to write and be prepared to defend or describe what you are exactly writing about. Brainstorming helps with you preparing and starting what you have to write about as well. I personally don't use all the 5 W's but use some of them.
Writing for me is not planning but just doing. I sit down and write sometimes in a non-logical order. After I believe I have said everything I want to say I put it away and leave it for a day. Coming back to it and organizing it and correcting it. I do this one more time to iron out all the things I need to. I do not plan like the book says. This kind of writing is easier for me because the time the writing sits I am thinking about it and trying to revise it in my head. I have tried to plan out my writings but always end up doing the same thing, just writing and revising.
I think this chapter is very important. When I read it, I got the sense that how you deliver your message in your document can be just as important as the message of the document itself. When an author decides how he or she is going to deliver that message they need to figure out who their audience is. An author also has to take their research and deliver it in such a way the audience will grasp the best. In my opinion an author can have the greatest information in the world, but if they do not know how to deliver that information, they document they have just created is almost useless.
Planning is a huge part of our world. If we didn't plan about the things that we need to, life would be chaotic. Our lives need stability. Planning is very important, because we have to make sure we are ready for something. Dressing for the occasion is a big part of our everyday planning in winter. We have to see how cold it is in order to plan on what to wear. Planning in my job is also a huge deal to me. Time management is what I need to watch and be careful of. I cannot plan alone either, I have to do it with all of the people that are involved. Meetings are very important when planning.
I do a lot of planning before I write something out, depending on what it is. Other times, I will just start writing and then change things as needed. I will draft a piece of writing that I am working on, and than fine tune it later. According to this article, that is a form of planning. Although I don't think I've ever actually planned as extensively as the article recommends to do. I think some projects may require this amount of planning, although others it would be unnecessary. Organizing your information with headings and subheadings is a helpful thought in this chapter, as I do this frequently.
Planning out what your writing is key. it helps you oraganize and can help one get there point across alot better then a disorganized paper, which can make a reader think the source/ writier is not a avery creditable source, or will be to hard for the reader to even understand. although planning does take more work then writing the paper at times, its worth it in the end.
This chapter and the summary posted has very successfully explained how planning and drafting is very important. When anybody prepares any visuals, presentations or documents then it is very necessary that they take care of making it very explanatory, clear and easy to understand and at the same time make sure that it is a successful documentation in terms of what it is trying to explain. For all these reasons any documents should be planned before creating it. If you plan anything then, you already know what it is going to be like and you can even modify it to a better output in the transition. In the same way if things are drafted before finalizing then you can always go back and change things and improve the structure and also the overall aspect of the document or presentation. So, planning and drafting are the ways to develop the best output from raw work.
In this chapter the main focus was planning. It really made me stop and think about how many things in my life are planned. I don’t start the day without thinking about what I have to do and planning out when and where the event was happening. Most days I wake up and I have a schedule. I brush my teeth, take a shower, go to class, come home eat some lunch, and go to work. After work I come home do whatever homework is left from the day, watch TV for a while and go to bed. That is my repeated schedule for most days of the week. My planning habits follow over into my homework also. Even something as small as a worksheet I have a strategy for approaching it. So in conclusion I have realized through this chapter that most aspects of my life are planned.
This chapter was summarized very well; it went over the four key points in the beginning of the chapter. I myself am a very organized person, I love to plan everything out and write everything down. If I didn’t plan everything that I am going to do, I wouldn’t get everything done that I need to get done. I find myself writing down everything I need to do so I don’t forget. I agree with pohll when she talks about reading through chapter 7 and thinking that all of the planning seemed a little over the top, I also thought that the chapter seemed to go a little more into the planning process then what I would do.
Planning out a project is necessary for quick and successful development. A well planned out project will always yield in a better finished project and will save time. Every project that I have down I have to do some planning work. Every one has there way of planning a project. The best method for me is brain storming. I like to put many ideas out on paper and then choose the best one. After I have selected the best idea I go from there. This method has always worked best for me. No matter what project you are working on, planning is the most important step.
When I sit down to write a paper I usually write a rough draft on paper, then I go through and type a final draft on the computer. After that my roommate will go through it and edit out all my mistakes. It's easier for me to get my ideas out there and if I need to rearrange things then I will do that. I do think planning is important, and I understand that it makes a paper more organized using an outline. For me it seems like an extra step to do an outline because my rough draft is pretty much my outline.
I think that this summary covers chapter seven well. I have always envied the people who can express themselves through writing. I find it hard to put my ideas down on paper. It takes me a while to get my point across on a topic while writing. When I write any kind of instructions, I find it vital to plan before jotting something down. Individuals today all have good sources of information. It’s how they relate these sources of information that make them successful. I need to plan in order to keep my information in a strong format. In conclusion, planning is an important tool while getting your point across to individuals.
I easily related to chapter 7 because I have wrotten and will continue to write papers throughout my life. I agree that organization is key to completing a project. Not only does planning and preparing ensure that you will have it completed in time, but also that all the neccessary material is covered. I always start a project, assignment, or paper with a thorough outline. I like the idea of breaking a document down into sections and sub-sections. I agree that it can make it easier to read and understand without being overwhelmed.
They did a very good job summarizing this chapter a lot of information was covered. In my history class we went over how to write an essay and we used the who, what, where, when and why but modified it to be why significant. This chapter also went into detail about planning and how important that is. If you don’t plan before starting a report your report will be very unorganized. You have to be specific in documents or oral reports other wise your audience can be very misled and confused on your report. This is very important for getting your point across clearly and sufficiently.
Proparing presentations and writing documents can be very difficult. Also they tend to all look the same, so this chapter gave some pretty good examples on how to improve the process. I expecially like how the book says you should use heading and foot notes. This does make the project origanal and unique. And it will make it more interesting to the reader. Planning for your project, to me, is very important and usually takes just as much time and effort as does doing the project. I agree 100% with the 5W plus H. Expecially the How, like how am I going to present my information in an interesting manner.
Any type of writing or any presentation that is any good involves the process of brainstorming and usually revisions. I have yet to meet someone who can literally write a perfect cognitive paper or outline for a presentation without either first outlining it and or revising it when they’re done. Even if it is cognitive there are usually grammatical errors or words that may fit better for certain audiences. The reason why it is so hard to write perfect without proper planning is because as people we practice verbal skills more often than writing skills and there always is room for improvement. The process that works best for me is usually just writing what pops into my head revising and rewriting it multiple times until I have a polished and good piece of work. The book establishes many techniques that all work well but as individuals we all have our own preferences and whichever one works best for you is the one you should use.
I think this summary is very well written. It covers the chapter well and highlights all of the main points. Planning is obviously a very big part of writing a document that I think most people overlook or slack on when it comes to writing a document. The ideas of planning given here are very good and I think they would be very useful to anyone writing any type of document or giving a presentation.
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