compositional phase
To take just the compositional phase, the study of manuscripts often enables us to make out several steps that cause developed scenarios, general sketches, and partial rough models to succeed each other (with the function, for example, of developing the contents of an initial workplan or scenario, sometimes without shaking off the list-like or subcompositional style that characterized the first phase). These are followed by notes on documentation to be used in composition; then a succession of compositional states in the true sense (that is, rough drafts proper, which build progressively to full sentences, and possibly to the admixture of various documentary sources, in general process of structuring and articulating the textualized material). Finally, we can distinguish a series of advanced rough drafts followed by fair copies more or less reworked (causing local rewrites and corrections to an already stabilized base text), at a stage that immediately precedes the fair copy of the predefinitive manuscript, and then the final manuscript. These last belong to the prepublication phase but can still sustain substantial modifications.