How to Write a Perfect First Draft (of your journal article, dissertation chapter)

ByMushtaq Bilal

Can you write a perfect first draft? Yes, you can!

Before you start working on your first draft, you'd need to do two things:

1. Active reading

This means reading scholarly prose very carefully and taking notes regularly.

If you'd like to know more about active reading, check out this post.

2. Writing zero drafts

A zero draft involves freewriting to process your ideas in and through prose.

If you are unfamiliar with the idea of a zero draft, check out this post.

If you've been reading actively and writing zero drafts for a few weeks, you'll have a bunch of written pages.

Congratulate yourself. Tell yourself you are this amazing person who has done all this hard work. This is very important.

Joan Bolker counseled academic writers at Harvard, Wellesley, and Brandeis for more than 30 years.

Here's her advice on how to get started on your first draft:

Pick the time of day with minimum distractions. Gather your zero drafts and read through them slowly.

Pick out words and sentences that you find interesting, challenging, annoying.

Write them separately (on a page or in a new document in your word processor).

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is it that stands out for me in these words/sentences?

2. What kind of point can be made using this material?

3. Do I still believe this?

4. Is the opposite of what I've written true?

Write answers to these questions in the first person like so:

"I am trying to argue X, but I am not sure if I have the necessary theoretical tools."

"I don't agree with what Famous Author has to say about Y." Etc. etc.

Try to write complete sentences. Or use a speech-to-text app.

Don't worry if a sentence or two remains unfinished/incomplete.

Write without any fear of judgement. Go through all your zero drafts in this manner. Focus on writing one complete sentence at a time.

But don't spend hours trying to "perfect" a single sentence (especially if you're a "non-native" speaker of English like me).

Write a sentence and move on the next one as quickly as you can.

"Fast writing," Bolker says, "produces no worse results than slow writing does."

Read slowly. Write quickly.

Once you've gone through all your zero drafts in this manner, you'll see your material taking some sort of a shape.

Keep at it until you have written 5,000 to 8,000 words.

Don't panic if your work still doesn't look polished. It's not supposed to at this stage.

Say, after working consistently for eight or so weeks in this manner, you end up with a document of around 7,000 words.

This document may not be refined or organized but it will at least have complete, and therefore, readable sentences.

Now you may ask, how an unrefined, unorganized draft can be a "perfect" draft.

A first draft that exists is a perfect first draft.

You can show this draft to a fellow graduate student, or a colleague, or your supervisor and ask for their feedback.

Seeking feedback is an indispensable part of the academic writing process. And a first draft that enable you to do so is a perfect first draft.