This post is part of a series on Writing Pedagogy.

One of the most broadly applicable things I learned in all of my linguistics coursework as a graduate student is the distinction between fluency and accuracy. Fluency relates to the rhythm of speech–does it flow logically from one unit of syntax to the next? without artificial pauses in the middle of a phrase? without repetitions? Accuracy relates to the correctness of the speech produced–is the speaker following the rules of the language and dialect? can their interlocutor understand what is being said? Speech can be incomprehensible because of disfluency or because of inaccuracy or because of a combination of both. The average native speaker is able to achieve a high degree of accuracy at the same time as a high degree of fluency. Language learners, though, tend to optimize one at the expense of the other. (This is not necessarily a conscious choice on the part of the language learner.) Understanding this distinction helped me realize that as a language learner, I tend to optimize fluency. It also helped me to understand a struggle that I was seeing in my writing classroom when students were drafting.

When given time to draft, some students are able to produce text fluently and fill the page with draft. Some students stare at a blank screen, and some students produce text in small chunks which they painstakingly edit before producing more text.

Some proficient writers have been able to make the painstaking edit-as-you-go system work for them. I am not one of them. And I think that many of my students write this way not because it works for them, but because they think writing should happen this way. The problem that I see with the edit-as-you-go way of writing is that this method works better if the writer has a mental model of the whole completed essay against which they are checking as they make choices at the sentence level. My students often don’t know where their writing is going when they start, so they are trying to make each sentence the best sentence it can be in isolation. This leads to excellent sentences that are not really connected to each other. It also leads to a disinclination to engage in substantive revision because the student writer has already invested so much energy in each sentence.

What works for me, and what I ask my students to try on for size, is a way of writing that embraces Anne Lamott’s idea of the “Shittty First Draft.” In this method, the writer gives themselves permission to produce imperfect prose. This method prioritizes fluency, getting words and ideas on the page, getting all the pieces of the essay on the page, over accuracy. The Shitty First Draft way of writing allows the writer to separate the generativity of the writing process from the judgement.

Gathering ideas, brainstorming, and drafting are generative parts of the writing process. They involve mental activities like making connections among ideas, explaining concepts, and synthesizing ideas from the writer’s life experience, their current research, and their general knowledge of the world. When I am in these stages of writing, it feels expansive, like my mind is opening wider to find the ideas I need. The emphasis here is on bringing more ideas/examples/resources/words to do the work I need the writing to do. As the writer engages in it, generativity builds momentum. Generativity is a yes, and mode of working.

In contrast, outlining, revising, and editing are judgmental parts of writing. Here, the focus is not on generating new ideas and new text, but on evaluating what the writer has already generated. Judging our own writing requires us to stop the generative momentum to shift into a no, but mode in which we reject ideas, acknowledge our errors, and identify gaps in the logical flow of ideas. For most writers, this is the part of writing that makes the whole process unfun.

Writers engaged in the edit-as-you-go method of producing text are constantly switching from generativity to judgement. Some writers enjoy working this way, but for many, this method maximizes the unfun aspects of writing. And switching modes is its own kind of mental load. In contrast, the Shitty First Drafts method allows the writer to concentrate first on generativity as expansive and creative mode and then on judgement as a distinct activity. Encouraging students to give themselves permission to produce text that is messy and ugly and imperfect allows them to spend longer stints of time in the generative mode, and ultimately, I would argue, to produce text that has greater depth and complexity of thought as a result.

There are lots of schemata out there that describe the writing process. This distinction of phases of the writing process into generative or judgmental modes can overlay your favorite schema. It’s important that writers be aware of the kind of mode they are in and be able to choose the right kind of mode for the situation in which they find themselves.