Chapter 4: The Writing Process 3: Drafting

Now that you’ve planned out your document and gathered information that meets your audience’s needs as explained in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, you’re just about ready to start drafting the document’s message. At this point it’s worthwhile reminding yourself that the words you start entering in your word processor on your computer will look different from those your reader will eventually read. By the end of the drafting stage examined in this chapter, your document will be partway there, but how much revising you do in the fourth stage of the writing process (see Ch. 5) depends on how effectively you’ve organized your message in the first step of this third stage.

• 4.1: Choosing an Organizational Pattern
• 4.2: Outlining Your Message
• 4.3: Forming Effective Sentences
• 4.4: Forming Effective Paragraphs
• 4.5: Writing in the Standard Business Style
• 4.6: Effective Document Design

All of the above sections are important to know even if your plan is to use AI to help draft your document if you know it’s appropriate to do so. If course policy or the assignment instructions forbid the use of AI, however, just don’t touch it. Recall the Introduction’s point that your very purpose for being a student is to learn, which means leaving the AI alone if it prevents learning by outsourcing a cognitive task. If your task is to think through problems by writing out your responses to them, not only would you rob yourself of the knowledge and skills you would otherwise gain from taking on the assignment entirely yourself but you would also risk being caught. Often, the sort of students who overly rely on AI to do their work for them seem also to underestimate their audience’s (e.g., their instructor’s) ability to recognize AI-generated writing when they see it. The chances of being caught using prohibited AI are high, so there are both carrot and stick reasons for leaving it alone if you have a writing assignment that prohibits its use.

If you are authorized to use AI to help draft the written portion of an assignment, however, make sure to use it wisely by being the human in the loop (HITL; see the Ch. 5 introduction for more on this in the context of editing). Follow genAId.org’s recommendations (in the Human-First AI infographics below) about being in charge of the writing process by using AI merely as a writing assistant to help you express your own learning in your own voice. Again, recall this textbook’s point in the Introduction about employing AI more as a personal trainer than a forklift when performing mental labour.

(The Digital Learning Lab, 2025)

By practicing the effective and responsible use of AI within the writing process (when authorized to do so) at the college level, you will be setting yourself up for success when encouraged to use it for productivity gains in your future workplaces.