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Writing

Explore writing as purposeful communication, from generating ideas and shaping arguments to using sources and revising drafts.

For: Learners at any starting point, including students and independent writers.

After this page you can: Choose a practical route through writing and explain how purpose, audience, structure, evidence, and revision shape a text.

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About Writing

Writing is the practice of shaping words into texts for particular purposes, readers, and settings. Purdue OWL describes a rhetorical situation through its text, author, audience, purposes, and setting, and says that understanding these elements can help writers meet audience needs and convey an intended message. The field includes many kinds of writing, so the choices that fit one task may not fit another. Studying writing means paying attention to how a text’s purpose and context shape its choices.

You can study writing by analyzing examples, then trying and reviewing choices in your own drafts. Purdue OWL describes a general process that includes pre-writing, organizing, and revising, while noting that the process can differ by person and assignment. Start by asking what you want a text to do and who will read it; then generate ideas, arrange them, and draft. Read the draft as a reader: check whether the main point is clear, the evidence supports it, and the organization helps the reader follow. Revision can address larger questions of meaning and structure as well as sentence clarity and proofreading. This hub offers routes through those decisions, with practice for applying each one.

Start here

route

I’m new to writing

Start with planning and the writing process.

Start with: The Writing Process

route

I have a draft to improve

Use questions about your main point, evidence, and readers to guide your next pass.

Start with: Steps for Revising

route

I want to work on persuasive writing

Explore a course that combines rhetorical analysis with practice designing arguments.

Start with: Writing and Rhetoric: Designing Meaning

Learn the foundations

1.Purpose, audience, and contextA writing situation includes a text, author, audience, purposes, and setting, and attending to these elements can help a writer address readers’ needs.

A writing situation includes a text, author, audience, purposes, and setting, and attending to these elements can help a writer address readers’ needs.

  • Purposes

    This guide discusses informative and persuasive purposes and how purposes shape communication choices.

Rhetorical situation

The communication context involving a text, author, audience, purposes, and setting.

Audience

The recipient or recipients of a text or other communication.

Try it

Imagine writing a notice asking neighbors to keep a shared hallway clear. Name its purpose and audience.

Purpose: ask neighbors to keep the hallway clear. Audience: people who use the shared hallway.

2.Generating and developing ideasPre-writing can include brainstorming, considering an audience’s questions, diagramming ideas, drafting, and rereading.

Pre-writing can include brainstorming, considering an audience’s questions, diagramming ideas, drafting, and rereading.

  • How to Outline

    The guide explains how outlines can show relationships and logical ordering among ideas.

Pre-writing

Work that helps a writer begin, explore ideas, and prepare to draft.

Brainstorming

Generating and gathering ideas before deciding which ones to develop.

Try it

Choose a familiar place and list three questions a reader might have about it.

For a neighborhood library: Where is it? What can visitors do there? When is it open?

3.Claims, theses, and organizationAn argument connects a specific, arguable claim to reasons and evidence, while organization guides readers through the reasoning.

An argument connects a specific, arguable claim to reasons and evidence, while organization guides readers through the reasoning.

Thesis

A central claim or controlling idea that gives an argument direction and needs support.

Evidence

Material such as data, examples, or testimony used to support a claim.

Try it

Turn “Libraries are useful” into a specific claim and name one kind of evidence that could support it.

Claim: A neighborhood library should provide a quiet study area. Possible evidence: examples of how visitors use the library’s existing spaces.

4.Using sources in your writingQuoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing are different ways to incorporate other writers’ work, and each requires attribution.

Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing are different ways to incorporate other writers’ work, and each requires attribution.

  • Paraphrasing

    The guide explains how to restate source material in your own words and document where the information came from.

Quotation

A passage that reproduces a source’s words and attributes them to the original author.

Paraphrase

A restatement of source information in new wording that still attributes the idea to its source.

Try it

A source says, “The garden opened in spring.” Describe how you would use that information as a paraphrase.

You could write, “The garden first opened during the spring,” and attribute the information to its source.

5.Revision and proofreadingRevision can address a draft’s main point, audience, evidence, organization, and clarity; proofreading checks for errors in grammar and mechanics.

Revision can address a draft’s main point, audience, evidence, organization, and clarity; proofreading checks for errors in grammar and mechanics.

  • The Writing Process

    The overview links to resources on pre-writing, organizing, revising, and proofreading.

Revision

Reworking a draft to improve its focus, support, organization, or clarity.

Proofreading

Checking writing for grammatical and typographical errors before submitting it to an audience.

Try it

Your draft has a clear main point, but one paragraph does not support it and several sentences are hard to follow. Name two revision actions.

Remove or reshape the paragraph so it supports the main point, then clarify the difficult sentences.

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Books

Glossary

Every free Writing course and book on RedLectern

Free Writing online courses

  1. A Global History of Architecture Writing SeminarMIT 4.696 · Browse materials · Video
  2. Advanced Workshop in Writing for Science and Engineering (ELS)MIT 21G.225 · Browse materials
  3. Advanced Writing SeminarMIT 11.229 · Browse materials
  4. Becoming the Next Bill Nye: Writing and Hosting the Educational ShowMIT 20.219 · Browse materials · Video
  5. City to City: Comparing, Researching and Writing about CitiesMIT 11.027 · Browse materials
  6. Composing Your Life: Exploration of Self through Visual Arts and WritingMIT ES.240 · Browse materials
  7. Graduate Technical Writing WorkshopMIT 21W.794 · Browse materials
  8. Science Writing and New Media: Communicating Science to the PublicMIT 21W.035 · Browse materials
Show all 40 listed coursesShow fewer courses
  1. Science Writing and New Media: Explorations in Communicating about Science & TechnologyMIT 21W.031 · Browse materials
  2. Science Writing and New Media: Perspectives on Medicine and Public HealthMIT 21W.034 · Browse materials
  3. Science Writing and New Media: Science Writing for the PublicMIT 21W.035 · Browse materials
  4. Science Writing and New Media: Writing and the EnvironmentMIT 21W.036 · Browse materials
  5. Science Writing in Contemporary SocietyMIT 21W.777 · Browse materials
  6. Studies in Poetry: Gender and Lyric -- Renaissance Men and Women Writing about LoveMIT 21L.704 · Browse materials
  7. World Literatures: Travel WritingMIT 21L.007 · Browse materials
  8. Writing About LiteratureMIT 21L.000J · Browse materials
  9. Writing About Literature: Writing About LoveMIT 21L.000J · Browse materials
  10. Writing about Nature and Environmental IssuesMIT 21W.775 · Browse materials
  11. Writing about Nature and Environmental IssuesMIT 21W.775 · Browse materials
  12. Writing About RaceMIT 21W.742 · Browse materials
  13. Writing About Race: Narratives of MultiracialityMIT 21W.742J · Browse materials
  14. Writing and Experience: Exploring Self in SocietyMIT 21W.731-1 · Browse materials
  15. Writing and Experience: MIT: Inside, LiveMIT 21W.021 · Browse materials
  16. Writing and Reading PoemsMIT 21W.756 · Browse materials
  17. Writing and Reading Short StoriesMIT 21W.755 · Browse materials
  18. Writing and Reading the EssayMIT 21W.735 · Browse materials
  19. Writing and Reading the EssayMIT 21W.735 · Browse materials
  20. Writing and Reading the EssayMIT 21W.735 · Browse materials
  21. Writing and Rhetoric: Designing MeaningMIT 21W.016 · Browse materials
  22. Writing Early American Lives: Gender, Race, Nation, FaithMIT 21L.707 · Browse materials
  23. Writing in Tonal Forms IMIT 21M.303 · Browse materials · Video
  24. Writing in Tonal Forms IIMIT 21M.304 · Browse materials · Video
  25. Writing Science FictionMIT 21W.759 · Browse materials
  26. Writing with ShakespeareMIT 21L.010 · Browse materials
  27. Writing WorkshopMIT ES.292 · Browse materials
  28. Advanced Workshop in Writing for Social Sciences and Architecture (ELS)MIT 21G.228 · Open on OCW
  29. City to City: Comparing, Researching and Writing about Cities: New OrleansMIT 11.027 · Open on OCW
  30. Expository Writing for Bilingual StudentsMIT 21G.222 · Open on OCW
  31. Writing and Experience: Reading and Writing AutobiographyMIT 21W.022 · Open on OCW
  32. Writing and Rhetoric: Rhetoric and Contemporary IssuesMIT 21W.011 · Open on OCW

40 of 41 shown. Search the Catalog for Writing →

How these courses are chosen

Listed as Writing courses:

  • those whose title contains “Writing”, or
  • those tagged “Writing” as one of at most 2 topic tags, or as the first of 3.

Free Writing textbooks and books

Show all 60 listed booksShow fewer books

Search all 67 Writing books on the Books page →

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