¶ … morning hours seem to the best time for me to write. It is quiet in my house, no phones ringing, no one playing music or talking to distract me, so these are my best moments to write. Later in the day I do my editing by adding strength to my transitions, by carefully checking to see if grammar and context are correct and generally by proofreading what I have written.
I occasionally scribble notes on a piece of paper if an idea comes into my head at lunch, or in another class. There is a tendency to forget some of my best ideas for themes and specifics in papers if I don't jot down a note to remind myself. But basically when I start out without notes, I just open up a Microsoft Word document and start writing on my MacBook computer. A teacher in high school used to implore students to just "…get something down on paper, it doesn't have to be polished or correct, it can be stream of consciousness, but get some words down on that blank paper and later go back and make it smooth and informative." There's nothing more useless, she emphasized to our class, than sitting and staring...
The margins are 1 inch all the way around (APA format); for my second draft, I use the technologically helpful word processing system and simply re-write, delete, edit or add new copy as I go along. I write pretty quickly, because I always know if there are errors I can go back. But it's important to me to get my best ideas down; sometimes I stop and look up facts and times and places on the Internet, to be certain that what I have written can be verified. Recently I wrote a research paper on the recent Airbus scandal in Canada, and I actually had to print out results of investigations -- to place beside my computer for reference -- to be sure I was quoting authoritative sources.
When I was satisfied that I pretty much had my second draft of the Canadian scandal in good shape, I printed it out and looked carefully at that hard copy. Sometimes I like to let the hard copy sit for a…
