This may be a hard truth, but every single word you write or type won’t make the final cut. Instead of getting discouraged there, though, look at that sentiment as a sense of freedom. You can try, and try again, until you get the end product you want. Not everything that you write will serve you or the essay well, so through multiple drafts and edits, you can make room for the best content.

First Draft:

Consider your first draft as the time to get the information out of your own head and down on paper. Keep in mind, since this is your first draft, it doesn’t have to be flawless, the full length of the essay requirement (yet), or perfectly organized. There will be time to work out the wrinkles.

The purpose of your first draft, and not including outside sources yet, is to make sure you have the bulk of your original content already embedded and laid out in your paper. You want to make sure your voice, perspective, and opinion (when necessary) is clearly expressed before you start adding in outside sources and content.

With this draft, have your outline in front of you and just simply work with what you know. Start by following the outline and filling in the content that you can pull from your own knowledge or anecdotes. Once you have the original information in place, then you can start to add in outside sources.

Middle Drafts:

The next draft(s) you write will include your original content and, now, the outside information and sources. When approaching the next round of drafting your essay, paying attention to source requirements (how many outside sources and what kind as well as formatting) will come into play. Make sure you review the assignment information for those details.

Since you already have your original information in place, you can now decide what outside sources and information will help support your existing content. This particular draft will still be part of the overall content development of your paper, so it’s okay if the transitions or attributions aren’t smooth yet. There will be time to polish up the more specific details once you have all the content in place. When deciding what sources are most beneficial and where to put them, your outline will come in handy here too. Sometimes, when looking at a simpler, skeleton-breakdown of the content on an outline, it’s easier to see an organizational approach and where to include outside information than wading through pages of a draft.

So now, once you have all of your content in place (both original information and outside sources), the next draft will consist of more detailed and localized additions. From here, you can focus on punctuation, grammar, formatting, transitions, etc. Look at writing an essay like baking a cake. Up until this point, you’ve collected ingredients (assignment instructions), baked a delicious cake (content drafts), and now we’re focusing on making the cake look nice (localized draft with focus on grammar, punctuation, etc.

At this point, you’re almost done!

Final Draft:

Now that your content is in place, the details are smoothed out, you’re ready for a final read-through on the Final Draft. The point of this last draft is to ensure all the corrections are in place, requirements are met, and your best foot is forward.

All that’s left is to turn it in on time!