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QUICK WRITING PROCESS is constructed out of common sense and writing experience. The essence of the system is discovering and presenting meaning. The emphasis, then, is on a planned, continuous process, from thinking about the subject and the audience, to structuring more than enough raw evidence for a provisional thesis, through fashioning the most powerful ideas and examples into the clearest language. With this kind of preparation and planning, anyone can write well under pressure. Moreover, each time you use QUICK WRITING PROCESS, you make personal adaptations in the system until it becomes an instinctive approach to any writing assignment. The next several chapters consider writing under familiar pressures that emphasize different aspects of the writing process. The pressure in exam writing, for example, is to demonstrate what you have learned clearly and efficiently to the reader. QUICK WRITING PROCESS exam writing focuses meaning through the lens of time. The pressure in research writing, however, is to discover and then present material effectively. Using QUICK WRITING PROCESS in research writing helps you find, select, and structure material clearly for your reader. At work, the pressure is to integrate the qualities of good writing with the demands of different kinds of readers: subordinates, supervisors, clients, colleagues. QUICK WRITING PROCESS allows you to accomplish two jobs simultaneously: to approach specific issues from a comprehensive perspective; and to increase the flow of authentic communication in the environment. Every piece of writing, whatever its subject, is also about writing; every completed memo, letter, or essay reflects the writer's view of what it is possible to accomplish in writing. This concentration on the writing process enriches the product: reading an essay by James Baldwin or George Orwell, we learn about the subject from the author's point of view and are set to thinking about our own ideas. But we are also prompted to think about the writing as well: how and why the essay is so clear, so powerful. The result is a renewed awareness of good writing, and the inspiration to improve our own. The way we write inescapably tells our reader a good deal about what and how we mean. If we adopt convention's or approaches at school or at work that are inappropriate for what we know, or what we want to say, then our writing necessarily suffers: meaning diminishes, style and tone reflect internal conflict, and the reader is confused. It is inappropriate to write an answer that only obliquely refers to the question on an exam. But it is equally futile to repeat what the lecturer has said in class if your own reading and thinking have led you to other perspectives. It is inappropriate to begin a research paper or article without a survey of the work that has been done before. But it is equally self-defeating to gather material without continuously integrating it with your own thinking. It is inappropriate to prepare a position paper when you've been asked for a one-page action memo. But it would be irresponsible to allow any sort of organizational code to prevent you from telling the reader what you think is most important about the issue. So many pressures work against our sharing our knowledge that we continue to write with a low level of satisfaction in school or at work, meeting arbitrarily narrow conventions and expectations. QUICK WRITING PROCESS helps us to shape what we know into our own words.
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