1. The Blank-Page Anxiety leaves you alone
We are all aware, to a certain extent, of the anxiety associated with a blank page. The document stares at you rather unpleasantly. You write one word and you choose to erase it afterwards. Once you complete a first draft though, you can simply relax knowing that the hardest part is over.
2. You do not have to be an English Major to write a first draft
A first draft is not meant to be perfect. It is meant to be erroneous and all over the place. You do not have to be a specialist in the English language to write a first draft. Hence, you can lower your standards for the first draft. After all, you do not have to be an English Major (and thus, possibly, a grammar expert) to write a messy paper.
3. The gems of your thoughts are no longer hidden in your mind
A first draft, because it is messy, allows you to simply write away whatever comes to your mind. Your best thoughts, which are usually trapped away deep in your mind will come out on the paper without you even realizing it. Go back and read any of your first drafts. I am sure you will find some gems there that were initially hidden away in your brain.
4. Nobody will ever see or read your first draft
This is the best thing about a first draft. Nobody will ever see it or read it aside from you. You are not handing it in. You are not asking your teacher to read it. You are only writing it for yourself. If you are the only one who is seeing it, it is you who will have the opportunity to laugh at yourself, after all.
5. The fear of perfection does not hold you back
When handing in a paper to the teacher you want your papers to be perfect, and for the teacher to be awed by its perfection. However, this can add to the fear of writing. Your first draft does not have to be perfect. And, If you are not scared of writing an imperfect paper, then writing becomes much easier.
6. It comes in handy for procrastinators before deadline day
If you are a procrastinator, a first draft will come in handy. As the deadline approaches and you still haven't started rewriting, you can always use lines, if not entire paragraphs, from your first draft to produce a quick paper. Of course if you are a procrastinator, there is always the risk that the first draft will never be written.
7. The final draft submitted is likely to be much better than you expected
The second and third attempts are almost always going to be better than the first. Once you have a framework, you can easily work within it to improve the words which you already set down. Hence, the final paper that you submit is going to be more polished than if you had written just the one paper.
8. The grammatical errors are easier to catch
In the process of thinking, it is easy to forget the little things. Grammar is rarely your primary concern when the original thoughts are being laid down. Yet, if you write a first draft and work on improving it, you will more easily catch the errors because you will be reading and rereading the lines.
9. Questions which arise can be asked much earlier
While writing, questions can drift into the mind about a paper. If you are writing a first draft long before deadline day, you can take those questions up to your teacher, receive a clear answer, and use that answer to construct a better paper. If those questions appear when you are writing a final paper, there might be no time left to ask them.
10. The final draft will include lines which you never thought you could write
Finally, because you allowed the gems in your mind to find space on an empty sheet, some of those gems, having been polished, might find their way into your final paper. Lines you thought only Shakespeare or Keats could write will be written by you instead, simply because you chose to write a first draft!
