As a result, being able to use language effectively allows us to shape reality. Writing, therefore, is the act of renaming. Writing is collaborative . Not only do we collaborate in the sense of asking friends, classmates, and teachers to read our written work, but writing is always collaborative in the sense that every time we write, we engage previous work, other readers, sources of our own thought, reader expectations, our expectations and mental frameworks, texts we have read, and institutional demands. We have something to say only because we are involved with other people, other voices.
Writing is a process .
We often think of writing in terms of a producing a product, and while it is true we are interested in the final outcome of our hard work, we should be equally interested in how well we think about the writing context and the choices we make to meet the demands of that context. Writing, then, is less a product than a process in that it moves through a range of non-linear stages, from reading to conception, to drafting, to revision, to reconceptualizing, to writing, to polishing, to revision again, etc. But writing is also a process in the sense that we constantly negotiate with readers, ourselves, and the text we write. Writing is a process to the degree that we reflect on our choices, ponder changes we might make, consider the consequences of what and how we say it, and revise our ideas. Put another way, instead of producing certain kinds of texts, we think about the texts we produce.