In a book that became popular in the 1950s, The Elements of Style, Strunk and White characterize a first draft as a less-edited version of the final draft with the purpose of “foresee[ing]...the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape".The Elements of Style Fiftieth Anniversary Edition (2009), p. 15, In Writing Without Teachers, a more recent take on the role of draft documents, Peter Elbow characterizes a draft less as a first attempt at a predetermined final point and more as an attempt at exploring and where a final version might end up. As he puts it, “[w]riting is a way to end up thinking something you couldn’t have started out thinking.  Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1973, 1998. p.15 ” According to Elbow, the best way to accomplish this is a series of drafts which come together to produce an emerging “center of gravity” that then translates into the main focus on the work -- a holistic process, in other words, rather than the linear process envisioned by Strunk and White and early writing process theory. Elbow reasoned that if a writer "learns to maximize the interaction" among their "ideas or points of view, [they] can produce new ones that didn’t seem available."Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1973, 1998. p.50 In the last two decades, empirical studies indicate that writers can be doing any or all of the following during phases of drafting: developing cohesion organizing their thinking in relation to text produced so far experimenting with phrasing explaining or linking examples/ideas generating transitions discovering a central argument/point elaborating on key ideas 
In a book that became popular in the 1950s, The Elements of Style, Strunk and White characterize a first draft as a less-edited version of the final draft with the purpose of “foresee[ing]...the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape".The Elements of Style Fiftieth Anniversary Edition (2009), p. 15, In Writing Without Teachers, a more recent take on the role of draft documents, Peter Elbow characterizes a draft less as a first attempt at a predetermined final point and more as an attempt at exploring and where a final version might end up. As he puts it, “[w]riting is a way to end up thinking something you couldn’t have started out thinking. ” Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1973, 1998. p.15 According to Elbow, the best way to accomplish this is a series of drafts which come together to produce an emerging “center of gravity” that then translates into the main focus on the work -- a holistic process, in other words, rather than the linear process envisioned by Strunk and White and early writing process theory. Elbow reasoned that if a writer "learns to maximize the interaction" among their "ideas or points of view, [they] can produce new ones that didn’t seem available."Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1973, 1998. p.50 Empirical studies of writers at work indicate that writers can be doing any or all of the following during phases of drafting: developing cohesion organizing their thinking in relation to text produced so far experimenting with phrasing explaining or linking examples/ideas generating transitions discovering a central argument/point elaborating on key ideas pausing to make adjustments to spelling, word-choice, and syntax
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In the last two decades, empirical studies
Empirical studies of writers at work
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pausing to make adjustments to spelling, word-choice, and syntax