CopyWork: How Benjamin Franklin Taught Himself to Write Well

With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try’d to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.

..  Ben Franklin’s Writing Lessons

  1. Read an article.
  2. Write short hints about each sentence (you could also outline the piece) and set it aside for awhile.
  3. Rewrite the article in his own words.
  4. Compare with the original.
  5. Revise and improve your essay.