The writing process - publishing

This page has information and advice about the publishing stage of the writing process.

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After all your hard work, you are now ready to share your finished writing with other people. Here are some of the ways you could do this:

  • give it to your teacher to respond to
  • read it out aloud in class
  • post it on a bulletin board
  • submit it for publication in a magazine
  • send it to someone (e.g. your pen-friend)
  • publish it on internet
  • make it into a book for keeping in the school library

The most important aspect of your writing, of course, is its content. For example: Is your story interesting with believable characters? Does your report have correct information, which is organized clearly and logically? The mechanics of your writing is also important. For example: Is your grammar correct? Do you have accurate spelling and punctuation?

However, at this final stage of the writing process, there is one last thing to think about. This is the presentation or appearance of your work. Once again, you have to consider your audience.

For example, if you are writing a report with a lot of factual information, try not present your readers with long blocks of text. It may be sensible to include titles and sub-titles for the different sections. If you use pictures, be sure to write a caption for them.

@ The first impression readers should have when they look at your work is: The author has thought about me and has tried to make the writing easy to follow and interesting to read. ~

As another example: You may have posted on the school bulletin board an interesting report of the class trip to Switzerland. But few people are going to bother to read it if you have written in tiny, scrawly writing on a scrappy piece of paper. On the other hand, the scrappy piece of paper may be fine if you simply intend to read your writing aloud in class.

With a good word processor it is easy to produce a really attractive piece of work that is easy and enjoyable to read. But don't spend hours trying to perfect the appearance of a piece of writing that will only be read by your teacher. He would much prefer you to spend that time perfecting the content of your work, or writing something else.

Well done. You have now reached the end of the writing process and are ready to start again on your next piece of work!

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