Writing the Process Paper

1. Writing the Process Paper Based on Insights from Dr. Art Seamans’ Writing for Growth

2. Anything can be viewed in two ways: static or dynamic. The static view seeks to find what iswhile the dynamic seeks to find out how it became so or how it moves through time.

3. James McCrimmon in Writing With a Purpose Identified 4 Kinds of Processes • How to do it • How it works • How it is organized. • How did it happen?

4. Thus there is a Wide Range of Possible Process Topics A great variety of writing can thus be identified as process—all the way from kitchen recipes and assembly instructions. . .

5. . . .to an analysis of great intellectual or cultural movements in human history, in which the writer might identify such a thing as the process of the decline of the Roman Empire (46).

6. Major Pitfalls • Dullness: Choosing a subject that holds no fasciation for the reader (or writer) • Obscurity: Confusing the reader through ignorance of all the facts or in haste in presenting them • Presumption: Jumping to Conclusions (“Post Hoc Ergo Proco Hoc” (Because an event followed another, it must have caused the second event.)

7. Dullness • Choose a subject which really engages you. • Dr. Seamans notes that “If a student chooses to write on a subject such as the process of silk-screening, he should attempt to capture the delight of color, precision, and beauty that the good artisan has” (47). • Often dullness in such a subject arises from the writer‘s ignorance of the subject. • That person who is deeply experienced in even common processes knows there is more art—and therefore wonder—than meets the eye, in most activities we fail to observe closely.

8. Obscurity • Anyone who has attempted to follow instructions for putting together some unassembled artifact purchased at a store is likely to be familiar with the obscurity of which process writing is often guilty.

9. Oversimplification • The director to a moteristmay describe the intersection where the driver is to make his final turn quite carefully but leave out the many decisions as to which fork in the road to take on the way to the place of the final turn. • Obscurity, therefore, arises from either the ignorance of the writer or his impatience.

10. Presumption • The more complex kind of process writing is most in danger of presumption since the more complex kind of writing is the how-did-it-happen kind. It is a great temptation to be prejudiced or hasty and attribute effects to causes carelessly. • Because A happened before B does not necessarily mean that A caused B. Moralizers are often prone to oversimplification. The Roman Empire was much too complex for anyone to be dogmatic about what the chief cause of its decline was.

11. Final Thoughts--Steps to Writing the Process Theme As You Begin. . . 1. Become interested in the way something is made or accomplished; or become interested in just how an individual has learned to excel at what he sets out to do. 2. Thoroughly acquaint yourself with the activity or just how the person excels at that activity. 3. Write clearly, knowledgeably, and excitedly. Avoid. . . 1. Choosing a subject that holds no fascination for the reader. 2. Confusing the reader through ignorance of all the facts or haste in 3. Jumping to conclusions as to what the causes for excellence are.