Do you think F. Scott Fitzgerald just sat down one day and then--boom!—Gatsby? Fitzgerald was a confirmed user of rough drafts, which means before there was TheGreat Gatsby, there was TheGood Gatsby and TheJust OK Gatsby.
Because Fitzgerald invested in an unremarkable first draft, his final draft was able to reach legendary heights. So what’s the secret to writing a rough draft like Fitzgerald? There’s no secret, really—it’s just about knowing what a rough draft is supposed to do, and learning the best ways to write one that supports your final work.
TARANTULA Primetime Animated series for TBS created by Carson Mell. Watch all Tarantula episodes on the TBS App & HULU+. In learning how to write a rough draft, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that suits every writer equally. This being said, writing a story draft as quickly as possible helps. Working quicker for the first pass helps to keep you from becoming discouraged or losing interest in your story idea.
- Another way to say Rough Draft? Synonyms for Rough Draft (other words and phrases for Rough Draft).
- In this section of the Excelsior OWL, you have been learning about traditional structures for expository essays (essays that are thesis-based and offer a point-by-point body), but no matter what type of essay you’re writing, the rough draft is going to be an important part of your writing process.
Find 4 ways to say ROUGH DRAFT, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus.
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What is a rough draft?
A rough draft or first draft (or, according to my second-grade teacher, a “sloppy copy”) is an initial, incomplete piece of writing that is the first attempt at getting all your ideas on paper. It acts as the framework for the final version. A rough draft is never intended to be perfect; it’s full of grammatical mistakes, poor word choices, and structural issues. The idea is to get a large portion of your project actually written, and worry about fixing the problems later.
The rough draft is part of the recommended writing process, step three of five to be exact. Often, it’s the longest and most effortful phase, involving most of the actual “writing.”
What’s the purpose of a rough draft?
![Rough draft definition Rough draft definition](/uploads/1/3/4/3/134361288/809087493.webp)
Writing is difficult. Even if you have a talent for putting words together, you’re not immune to the concerns that beset any writer, such as deadline dread, creative blocks, or any number of personal insecurities. Antutu helio p70. When embraced with the right mindset, the rough draft helps cut through these obstacles by taking the pressure off. Remind yourself: It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be.
The ultimate goals of your rough draft are to get your ideas down and give yourself something to start with. Finding the perfect word and arranging elements in the best order are much easier after you have a first draft, whereas they can be quite troublesome and time-consuming without one.
A rough draft also helps you identify problematic areas you can’t see with outlining and brainstorming alone. Certain flaws like organizational issues or plot holes aren’t evident until after you see them laid out in writing.
What to include in a rough draft?
A rough draft is essentially a raw version of the complete assignment. So, everything you’d include in the final draft should go into the first draft. Of course, the rough draft is only for the writer, so no one will stop you if you need to skip some sections or gloss over others—but you’ll have to address any shortcuts leading up to the final draft.
Specifically, let’s answer two frequently asked questions about what to include in a rough draft:
How long should a rough draft be?
A rough draft should be about as long as the final version. Many writers tend to overwrite their first drafts. This can actually work in your favor, giving you more usable material to choose from. Throughout the editing process, keep in mind that what you ultimately keep should contain the best parts of that rough draft.
Does a rough draft need citations?
We recommend it. It’s useful to have all the material you need for your final draft already in your first draft, including citations, so you can gauge the piece as a whole.
How to write a rough draft
For starters, your first draft is not the first step. Beginning with the brainstorming process is crucial for eliciting and organizing all the content you want to put in your writing, whether it’s creative ideas for fiction or supporting evidence for nonfiction. You’ll come up with new ideas while writing the rough draft, but it’s always best to stockpile as many as you can beforehand.
After brainstorming comes the outlining phase, which is essential for structuring your content and putting everything in a logical order. You can think of your outline as the rough draft for your rough draft—a blueprint of where everything goes.
With those out of the way, you can begin your first draft with confidence. The most important tip for writing rough drafts is to give yourself permission to write imperfectly. As we’ve said, the goal of a rough draft is to get all your ideas down, not to write everything perfectly on your first try.
This is because if you’re focusing on finding the right word or making sure your grammar is correct, it means you’re not focusing on the big picture. Finessing the technical, finer points of writing like word choice and grammar are easier after the first draft, so compartmentalize and save them for later.
Instead of nitpicking, just focus on solidifying your raw ideas. Follow your outline as best you can, but also keep an open mind for new ideas—writing the first draft can be full of inspiration!
After the rough draft: Next steps
After the first draft, you’re ready to revise. Just like you learned how to write a rough draft, you should follow the best practices for how to edit as well. The editing phase is when you finally take care of all the issues you let slide while writing the rough draft.
Rough Draft Example
Once that’s finished, the last step is proofreading, where you fix all the grammar and spelling mistakes and give it a final lookover. After proofreading, that’s it! Enjoy how your once-rough writing looks after a sparkling polish!
Rough Draft Resume
Let's talk about rough drafts. Now I know that sometimes it's hard because you do your outline, you prep your thesis statement, you've done all this thinking that goes into it, and then your teacher probably just says right.
There are some things I tell my students to keep in mind, when they sit down to actually draft. The first is, don't worry about length, at least not too much. Of course, you don't want to write a 20 page rough draft, if your page limit is three pages. So keep that in mind a little bit. But if your page limit is three pages and your rough draft is four, let it go. You can go back to it and you can pair things back later.
The other thing I have remind my students is, remember your outline. You won't believe how many students do their outline, they plan everything out and then they sit down at their computer and say, 'I don't know what to write here.' And then I have to remind them, 'Get out that outline.' That is all the thinking that goes into your essay. So writing it shouldn't be the hard work.
If you get stuck, move on and come back later, and this is really important. When it comes to drafting, I definitely advise sitting down more than the night before papers do, because sometimes you will get stuck on your hook for your introduction, or maybe how to analyze a particular quote. And sometimes the best thing to do, is to just skip over it, keep going with something else and then come back to it with some fresh eye. So give yourself sometime.
That brings me to getting a different set of eyes on your papers. So, in the drafting process, and hopefully you'll have multiple draft, it's always good to get multiple different people to look at it. Not just your teacher, not just you, but asking a friend, asking a parent, asking a different teacher who didn't assign it, to look at it. It's going to give you an idea of what it is that you're communicating. Often times we get so in our papers that we think we're being clear. When somebody else reads it and it's not very clear at all. So it's always nice to get that feedback.
My other advise is take breaks and that's another reason why I say give yourself some time in the drafting process. It's amazing what it'll do for you to take maybe a day away from a paper, and then sit down, go back to it and look at it with fresh eyes. And then finally, welcome the feedback from everybody but remember, you're the writer. So, welcome feedback, ask people to look at it, but don't get angry if they say things that you don't agree with. Ultimately, you make the final choices when it comes to your writing. So don't get too frustrated. Really open your ears to what they are saying.
So hopefully all of these things will help you in that drafting process and get you to that final draft a little bit easier.
There are some things I tell my students to keep in mind, when they sit down to actually draft. The first is, don't worry about length, at least not too much. Of course, you don't want to write a 20 page rough draft, if your page limit is three pages. So keep that in mind a little bit. But if your page limit is three pages and your rough draft is four, let it go. You can go back to it and you can pair things back later.
The other thing I have remind my students is, remember your outline. You won't believe how many students do their outline, they plan everything out and then they sit down at their computer and say, 'I don't know what to write here.' And then I have to remind them, 'Get out that outline.' That is all the thinking that goes into your essay. So writing it shouldn't be the hard work.
If you get stuck, move on and come back later, and this is really important. When it comes to drafting, I definitely advise sitting down more than the night before papers do, because sometimes you will get stuck on your hook for your introduction, or maybe how to analyze a particular quote. And sometimes the best thing to do, is to just skip over it, keep going with something else and then come back to it with some fresh eye. So give yourself sometime.
That brings me to getting a different set of eyes on your papers. So, in the drafting process, and hopefully you'll have multiple draft, it's always good to get multiple different people to look at it. Not just your teacher, not just you, but asking a friend, asking a parent, asking a different teacher who didn't assign it, to look at it. It's going to give you an idea of what it is that you're communicating. Often times we get so in our papers that we think we're being clear. When somebody else reads it and it's not very clear at all. So it's always nice to get that feedback.
My other advise is take breaks and that's another reason why I say give yourself some time in the drafting process. It's amazing what it'll do for you to take maybe a day away from a paper, and then sit down, go back to it and look at it with fresh eyes. And then finally, welcome the feedback from everybody but remember, you're the writer. So, welcome feedback, ask people to look at it, but don't get angry if they say things that you don't agree with. Ultimately, you make the final choices when it comes to your writing. So don't get too frustrated. Really open your ears to what they are saying.
So hopefully all of these things will help you in that drafting process and get you to that final draft a little bit easier.