Zulfiqar Parvez-
There are two approaches to writing that you can adopt while writing something in English or any other language. The first of these is known as model/product/genre approach. This has three phases:
A) Presenting a model or archetype of a piece of writing before the students
B) Analysing the model
C) Developing a paragraph or an essay imitating the model (Prototype)
The second approach is known as process approach and is way more popular than the first and is followed around the world. This has five stages. They are as follows:
A) Generating or producing ideas in the SL (Source Language)
B) Translating the ideas into the TL (Target Language)
C) Inclusion and exclusion of ideas
D) Writing the first copy
E) Editing or revising
Before we begin to write on a given topic, we generate ideas on that. Writing, in its simplest form, is nothing but the written expression of ideas. This brainstorming starts much before we actually begin to write with a pen on a piece of paper. It is for this that we say real writing begins long before you put your pen on paper. It begins the moment you begin to think what to write and what not to.
Now when we generate ideas, they first occur to us in our mother tongue (SL), which we later go on to translate into the language we are asked to write into (TL). How quick we are at translating the ideas into the TL partly determines how spontaneous our writing is going to be.
It is important that you have a good vocabulary of the TL so you do not get stuck with translation. But the production of ideas, translation of the ideas produced, and inclusion and exclusion of ideas all happen inside the brain and are abstract phases, albeit they are parts of a concrete piece of writing.
Then when you start writing, follow a particular pattern. Write a few sentences or a paragraph at a time and go back and check what you have written, and correct any errors you may commit either in grammar or diction. Then write again, pause and check what you have written.
That is to say, writing and editing will go hand in hand. In some cases, it is possible to write a number of versions of a piece of writing, like when you are writing for a newspaper or a magazine before you finally pick the final copy to make its way into print. But it is not feasible when you are in the exam hall. So the writing and the editing should occur in tandem.
Zulfiqar Parvez is Head of English at Tanzimul Ummah International Tahfiz School.
