Having the skills and knowledge of the writing process will allow a first time writer or even a skilled writer the ability to produce a paper or essay that will be easy to follow, understand and get the point across to the person or persons reading it. There are five steps to the writing process and each step needs to go in order and should not be skipped. The first step in the writing process is prewriting. Prewriting is me is basically the thinking stage. What is the topic? Consider your audience, who is going to read this paper? Prewriting allows you to brainstorm ideas and do your research. The next step is outlining. This is where you put your ideas and what you researched on paper in your own words. Outlining how you want your paper structured. What order are you going to put the paper in? Chronological, or numerical, excetra. Put your ideas and research information together in a way that will make sense to the reader. Writing a rough draft is next. This is where you write you paper but it is not quite ready to be submitted as the final copy. Revising is the fourth step. This is probably the most important of the process. After writing your rough draft you read it to make it better. Ask someone else to read it as well and take their ideas into consideration. Rearrange sentences if needed, take out information or maybe even add a little more. The last step is editing. This is were you will check for errors. Is the spelling correct, punctuation correct, sentences structured correctly? Then when that is finished you recopy it correctly and neatly. It is important to follow every step of this structure to have a paper that will show your skills, knowledge, and credibility of the given