Hello. This week you’re preparing your first draft of your first major project. And, as we move into that phase of the course, I wanted to take a minute to define what a draft is for this class. As writers now, we want to be thinking about how we are defining our terms and how other people are defining their terms. We're not looking for the one right definition of draft. It's just important that you think about how I am defining draft for this particular context. So when you use terms in your own writing, think about what terms you might need to define that other people might be defining different. So, what is a draft in this class? I'm going to start with what it's not, because that might be more familiar to you. It is to me. A draft is not, for this class, written five minutes prior to the deadline. A draft is also not so perfect that you're unwilling to change anything. We all get attached to certain aspects of our writing or certain sentences that you write where you're just like this is such a great sentence. But, even though that's good to have enthusiasm and attachment like that, you also want to be willing to change something should you get some feedback. So don't get so attached to the draft. Okay? It's an initial draft. It's also not an outline of what you will write once you get the chance. I've seen a lot of drafts over the years where there is like a really good paragraph or two paragraphs that are solidly written, and then, just kind of the writer ran out of time so listed an outline underneath it. And that's a really good outline, but that's not for the purposes of this class, a draft. Now, for what a draft is. A draft is as complete a version of your paper as you can make it at this point, without additional reader input and feedback. As a writer, when I reach a point where I've really said what I wanted to say, or at least, I'm close to what I want to say I feel like I really need readers' feedback to see if I'm heading in the right direction. And I can also use feedback when I'm at a stumbling block or like I'll have the whole project the way I want it, but I'm really stumped with a particular aspect. It should also be, the draft, should be ready for feedback. And that means that you've thought about what you want feedback on. I usually have specific questions for my readers about moments in the piece where I'm not sure if it works or I want to rethink it or I want to ask them a question. So be thinking about what kind of feedback you want on your draft. And finally, a draft really should be proofread and relatively free of error. So it's somewhat polished. Because you don't want your readers distracted by lots of spelling errors or grammar errors or things that prevent them from thinking about the ideas.