7 Chapter Seven: Getting a Draft Done
What is drafting? Drafting is writing a piece from beginning to end (usually based on your planning). As noted in the previous chapter, some people choose to draft as soon as they understand the topic, purpose, audience, and main point. We suggest working from an outline. Either way, drafting is whaDrafting t brings your piece to life.
Whether an email to a client, a lab report in chemistry, or a research paper, a draft has all the elements of what is going to be in the final version of the paper, the one you deliver to your boss or instructor.
Moving from the Outline to Paragraphs
Once you feel satisfied with the points you’ve made in the outline, you can start writing! Follow the outline, using details in the outline in the order they are presented.
In the previous chapter, I wanted to write an essay about the value of thrift store shopping. I created an outline with the main points I wanted to cover first. Based on this section of the outline:
- Mindset
- Be okay with imperfection
- Be okay with leaving with nothing
- Important to like a large closet
Based on the above section of my outline, I might write a paragraph like this:
When taking the thrifting plunge, the first thing to do is get your mind right. Thrifting is not like shopping at a regular department store, where they have a more limited selection, but almost always all the sizes you could want in clothes that are perfect. In most instances, you’re buying used clothes, which means they might not be in perfect condition. Decide what you can tolerate in terms of imperfections; for example, is a tiny stain near the armpit of an otherwise gorgeous sweater okay to you, or not? You must also remember that, because you’re not shopping at a department store, you might not find anything you like. This means that you may need to go shopping more often. If you’re a person who loves to shop, like me, this is great! Another excellent thing to remember is that when you thrift, you’re likely going to find more things you want to buy, which means you will have a larger closet with more selection. This is a fun part of the thrifting journey.
Can you see how I described the ideas around imperfection, leaving with nothing, and liking a large closet? I explain those things, giving specific descriptions and examples along the way.
As you draft, you might find yourself getting stuck with some of your points and how to explain them. Don’t worry!
Options for drafting content:
• Answering what are called the “journalistic questions”: Who, What, Where, When, Why, How?
• Including personal experience or observation
• Definitions of key terms
• Analysis of points
• Recommendations
• Use of outside sources
This last one, using outside sources, is important to keep track of while you’re drafting. There are several ways of doing this. You could simply add a note (like, “Add citation here”) in the text so you remember to return to it later. You can also add the parenthetical citation (like, (Rogers 23) or (Rogers, 2025, p. 3)). See more in Chapter 14: Research.
Organization Between and Within Paragraphs
Something else that can be tricky when drafting is assuring that you have solid transitions within and between paragraphs. If you’ve ever gotten feedback from someone that your writing is “jumpy” or your ideas seem to skip around, you need to pay attention to the flow of your ideas. How do you do this?
First, note that a paragraph has the same structure as a whole essay which starts with an introduction, moves into the body, and then has a conclusion.
Structure of a paragraph:
Topic sentence: Gives an overview of the paragraph.
Body: Supports the topic sentence.
Concluding sentence: Wraps up ideas and/or transitions into the paragraph that follows.
Consider the following paragraph from The Atlantic article “Why Do Humans Talk to Animals if They Can’t Understand?” by Arianna Rebolini. The bolded italicized words act as transitions within the paragraph:
Example of transitions within a paragraph
It’s no stretch to suppose that a person with few or no friends would treat a pet more like a human friend. Perhaps, too, people speak to their pets because they like to believe the animals understand, and perhaps people like to believe they understand because the alternative is kind of scary. To share a home with a living being whose mind you can’t understand and whose actions you can’t anticipate is to live in a state of unpredictability and disconnectedness. So people imagine a mind that understands, and talk to it.
Works Cited
Rebolini, Arianna “Why do humans talk to animals if they can’t understand?” The Atlantic 18 August 2017.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive /2017/08/talking-to-pets/537225/
Note the first sentence is the topic sentence, getting us into the idea of pets as friends. The final sentence brings together the previous ideas by coming to a conclusion about those ideas.
Another good habit is to notice the way things are organized in texts you read. You can get good ideas for how to organize your own texts from other well-organized texts.
Common transitional words and phrases
If you’re interested in how to include a transition in your writing, consider the following chart with a variety of options for different writing purposes. Be careful: you don’t want to use the same transitional words over and over, so a chart like this can help you be less repetitive.
Transitions that show sequence or time
| After | Before | Later | Afterward | Before long |
| Meanwhile | As soon as | Finally | Next | At first |
| First, second, third… | Soon | At last | In the first place | Then |
Transitions that show position
| Above | Across | At the bottom | At the top | Behind |
| Below | Beside | Beyond | Inside | Near |
| Next to | Opposite | To the left, to the right, to the side | Under | Where |
Transitions that show a conclusion
| Indeed | Hence | In conclusion |
| In the final analysis | Therefore | Thus |
Transitions that continue a line of thought
| Consequently | Furthermore | Additionally | Because |
| Besides the fact | Following this idea | In addition | In the same way |
| Moreover | Considering…it is clear that | Looking beyond | Further |
Transitions that change a line of thought
| But | Yet | However |
| Nevertheless | On the contrary | On the other hand |
Transitions that show importance
| Above all | Best | Especially | In fact |
| More important | Most important | Most | Worst |
Transitions that introduce the final thoughts in a paragraph or essay
| Finally | Last | In conclusion |
| Most of all | Least of all | Last of all |
All-purpose transitions to open paragraphs or to connect ideas inside paragraphs
| Admittedly | At this point | Certainly | Granted | It is true |
| Generally speaking | In general | In this situation | No doubt | No one denies |
| Obviously | Of course | To be sure | Undoubtedly | Unquestionably |
Transitions that introduce examples
| For instance | For example |
Transitions that clarify the order of events or steps
| First, second third | Generally, furthermore, finally | In the first place, also, last |
| In the first place, furthermore, finally | In the first place, likewise, lastly |
Works Cited
Weaver, Rebecca et al. “Table of Common Transitional Words and Phrases.” Successful College Composition (3rd Edition), 2016, p. 40-43. English Open Textbooks, https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/8.
Media Attributions
- person drafting on computer © Image by Freepik
The process of creating a preliminary version of a paper where ideas are developed and organized into a coherent structure, often with the understanding that it will be revised and refined.
Groups of related sentences that each develop a single main idea, helping to organize and support the overall argument or purpose of the paper.
Words or phrases that provide a connection between ideas, sentences, and paragraphs (e.g., "however," "therefore").
