5.4: Initial, or Zero, Draft

After brainstorming, many people write an initial draft, which I am calling a zero draft. The zero draft gets the writing started and generally isn’t going to be ready for others to see. This draft is a great way to begin because you don’t have to be neat and tidy or super correct sentence-wise. Since this draft just begins to organize ideas, a zero
draft should never be turned in as a completed draft for grading; trust me—these drafts just aren’t ready for prime time. Zero drafts also tend to be fairly useless in a peer response session, so write a complete preliminary draft for that purpose. Unless your instructor asks you to provide it, this draft is yours alone. Return to it as you write your preliminary draft to keep track of how your earliest ideas are developing. You’ll be interested in seeing whether your preliminary draft follows these early ideas or veers from them.

Zero Draft

The Exploitation of Multiple Birth Children

Two weeks ago, Nadya Suleman gave birth to
octuplets in a California hospital. Although all eight babies
lived, they were very small and some may die. Suleman
now is the mother of fourteen children—six between the
ages of 2 and 7. She is unemployed, without a husband or
partner, and lives in her mother’s home (she fights with
her mother enough that her mom has said so publically).
Suleman’s babies and her own poverty are the talk of the
tabloids and everyone seems to have an opinion. But
people have always been excited when multiple children
are born to women. But there will likely be more of these
births because of in vitro fertilization. Both parents and
society tend to exploit these children, but it is not
acceptable because it is harmful to the children.

For demonstration purposes, I’m showing you only one paragraph of my zero draft. It provides the barest details of what the first paragraph of my preliminary draft would become. Don’t worry if my zero draft looks stronger than one of yours might. I write professionally and I teach writing—it’s natural that I would get a good start. When you
look at the preliminary draft, however, you’ll see that I can do much better! The assertion, which is the last sentence in both examples, is much more focused in the preliminary draft than it is in the zero draft

For people who really become stuck or “blocked” when beginning to write an essay, the combination of some brainstorming and a zero draft can get you started writing fairly painlessly. If you’re really stuck, just take some of your brainstorming ideas and begin writing without looking at the paper or screen. Take time to begin developing your
thinking before worrying about whether it makes much sense. As long as you take time for writing additional drafts, this zero draft process will be helpful.