As all of us in academia know, the writing process rarely begins with a blank Word document titled, “rough draft.” It begins with an idea, notes jotted into a notebook, a lot of (annotated) reading, study design, data collection, and a whole host of other steps before the aforementioned Word document even exists. Large-scale writing projects can be daunting, not only because they require a lot of hard work, but because organizing oneself can be challenging.

Before UCSD went fully remote, I attended a graduate writing retreat to make progress on my qualifying paper. The writing retreat, hosted by the Teaching + Learning Commons (TLC), is meant for those with large writing projects (e.g. qualifying papers, dissertations, etc.). It was my first time attending a writing retreat. I expected attendees to spend the entire time quietly working, but the TLC structured the time such that students first learned how to efficiently work. Below is one of the most-helpful handouts that they gave to us.

Pictured are the various stages of the writing process arranged in a grid pattern. The 25 stages are:

1. Initial reading/notes
2. Re-reading for quotes/references
3. Mapping ideas
4. Making a writing task list
5. Clarifying organization
6. Re-reading for ideas/gaps
7. Jigsaw planning (pieces only)
8. Data re-analysis
9. Outlining organization
10. Cutting extraneous material
11. Brainstorming ideas
12. Data analysis
13. Generating words/content
14. Clarifying words and sentences
15. Proofreading the draft
16. Data generation
17. Outlining ideas
18. Connecting the pieces
19. Reverse outlining the draft
20. Bibliographic material
21. Integrating data and/or sources
22. Clarifying arguments
23. Reading the draft
24. Fine-tuning sentences
25. Formatting the document

Although numbered here, they are arranged in a grid pattern to emphasize the fact that moving through each task is not something done in a specific, sequential order. Instead, move through each task intentionally as you see fit. When one gets tiring, intentionally switch to a new task. This will focus your attention and make you more productive throughout your writing project.

Hope this helps you as much as it helped me!