Writing techniques

In high school, my writing skills were just average. Although this is not a very good work ethic, I am very good under pressure. Most of the time, I would wait to start a paper until just a couple of days before. The pressure helps motivate me to finish what I have to get done by the deadline. Before I start writing a paper, I brainstorm in my mind what I'm going to write about. I start by thinking of what the topic and main point are going to be. Once I have these points in mind, I will start to think of examples that could help the reader understand more of what I am trying to say. I will usually draw out a little outline of all the important points I would like to emphasize in the paper. When I begin to write my intro paragraph, I start by beginning with a very broad statement. I will then slowly go into more depth about the topic and begin to get more specific. I usually begin by writing a rough hand copy by hand first. This helps me be able to change a lot of things before I go and actually type up my final draft. I work best in an environment where there is at least a little bit of music. Without music it is a lot more difficult for me to be able to come up with ideas and topics to talk about in my papers. It also helps keep me awake! My strongest point about writing papers is the grammar. Growing up, grammar has just always come easy to me. The hardest thing for me about papers would be vocabulary. I have an average vocabulary, but my hopes are that one day my vocabulary and speaking would improve and I would sound much more educated. Once I am finished writing a paper, I will sit there and read it two more times. First time I go through and check to see if I have covered all the points and topics mentioned before. The second time I go through the essay to check for grammar and spelling mistakes. I will usually let at least one more person read it after me so they can catch anything if I missed it. These are my strategies and techniques I used while I was going through English in high school.