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What Is Prewriting?

Prewriting is the first stage of the writing process and the point at which we discover and explore our initial ideas about a subject. Prewriting helps us to get our ideas on paper, though not usually in an organized form, and brainstorm thoughts that might eventually make their way into our writing. Listed below are some of the most common types of prewriting techniques. You should become familiar with all of these and figure out the one that works best for you. The different types of prewriting that we will explore here are freewriting, brainstorming, clustering, tagmemics, and journalistic technique.

Some Useful Prewriting Strategies

Freewriting

Freewriting involves jotting down on paper all of the ideas you have on a particular topic before you even begin to read about it or do research. You are not worried about complete sentences, proper spelling, or correct punctuation and grammar. Instead, you are interested in “dumping” all of the information you have on paper. You should write everything that comes into your head—even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense yet. Give your self a set amount of time (maybe five to ten minutes), and write down everything that comes to mind about your topic.

Example: I have to write a paper about the environment. I have no idea where to start! I know there are many problems with the environment, but I don’t know much about this topic. Maybe I could take a look at my biology book to come up with some ideas. I know my biology professor is also really into the environment, so maybe I could ask for his help. I remember he was talking about hybrid cars in class the other day and how much better those are for the environment. What is a hybrid car? I know it uses some sort of alternative fuel and they are becoming very popular. Maybe that is something I could write about…

Brainstorming

Much like freewriting, brainstorming involves capturing all of the thoughts, ideas, and fragments in your head and writing them down on paper. Often, brainstorming looks more like a list while freewriting may look more like a paragraph. With either strategy, your goal is to get as many ideas down on paper as you can.

Example: Environment

Problems

Future

Cars

Alternative fuels

Hybrid cars

Costs

Benefits?

Clustering

With this technique, you start with a circle in the middle that contains your main idea and then you draw lines to other, smaller circles that contain sub-ideas or issues related to the main idea. Try to group like ideas together so as to organize yourself.

Example: About the value of a college education

Particle, Wave, Field (Tagmemics)

The basic idea underlying tagmemics can be easily stated: an object, experience, or idea can be viewed as a particle (a static unit), a wave (a dynamic unit changing over time), or a field (a unit seen in the context of a larger network of relationships). Each of these perspectives encourages you to ask different kinds of questions about your subject (represented here as X).

Particle perspective: What is X?
Wave perspective: How has X changed over time?
Field perspective: How does X relate to Y or Z?

Example:

If you view something as a particle, you focus on it as a static (still) entity. For example, if you were exploring ideas for a sociology paper on the transformation of the American nuclear family, you could use a particle perspective to ask questions like the following:

What does the term nuclear family mean?
Who formulated the term nuclear family?
What features characterize the nuclear family?

If you look at a subject from the wave perspective, you view it as dynamic or changing over time. The wave perspective would encourage you to ask the following questions:

How long has the nuclear family characterized family structure in America?

When did the nuclear family begin to change?
What factors have caused the nuclear family to change?
How might these factors affect the American family in the future?

Finally, if you look at a subject from a field perspective, you ask questions about the way that the subject functions as a part of a larger network of relationships. This perspective would encourage you to ask questions like these:

How are changes in the structure of the American family related to other changes, such as those in the work force, organized religion, the educational system, and divorce rates?
What are the consequences of changes in the nuclear family for American life in general? For politics? For social services? For education?

Journalistic Technique

As you may know, journalists have six important questions they need to answer about any story they report: who, what, when, where, why, and how. By answering these questions, journalists can be certain that they have provided the most important information about an event, issue, or problem to their readers.

These questions are also useful to you as writers when you are describing and event or writing an informative essay. As with the exploded moment, this technique allows you to make sure you have provided all of the important and specific details of a situation.

Example:

Suppose that your government professor has asked to write about the political conflict in the Middle East. Using the journalistic technique, you could begin working on the paper by asking yourself the following questions:

Who is involved in the conflict?
What issues most clearly divide those engaged in this dispute?
When did the troubles in the Middle East begin, and how have they developed over time?
Where does the conflict seem most heated or violent?
Why have those living in this area found it so difficult to resolve the situation?
How might this conflict be resolved?

Using the journalistic technique helps you make sure you have answered all of the important questions.

Other Useful Strategies

Aside from the strategies listed on these pages, it is also sometimes useful to discuss your ideas with a classmate, friend, or professor. Often, brainstorming aloud and hearing your ideas in auditory fashion can help you think about ways to start your paper. A great resource is the Writing Lab. You do not have to have a rough draft to go the lab; often, it is useful to go there and brainstorm ideas with one of the tutors. Finally, before you begin your prewriting techniques, make sure you thoroughly understand the purpose and audience for the assignment. Ask questions if you are unsure what you are supposed to do. It is difficult to prewrite if you do not understand the assignment.

Why Use these Techniques?

Though you have already used brainstorming, clustering, or any of a number of other prewriting techniques, the particle, wave, field and journalistic techniques are slightly more formal. Try these new ways of prewriting and compare them to the previous strategies you used. The key to any prewriting is finding something that works for you and also finding a technique that is comprehensive enough. Jotting down a word or sentence or two for prewriting is usually not enough; the more ideas you can get on paper in the early stages of writing, the stronger your final paper will be.

Parting Words

Remember to save all of your prewriting! You will have to turn in this step with the rest of your writing, so make sure you put is somewhere safe until the paper is due. Also, your prewriting will often look very different from the final draft. That’s ok—remember that this is just the first step to get you started writing. Your writing will evolve in each step you take it through.

Professional and Technical Writing/Design/Document Organization/Organizational Patterns

Organizational Patterns

There are seven different patterns that are commonly used to organize documents: Formal classification, informal classification, comparison, partitioning, segmenting, cause/effect, and problem/solution. Which organizational pattern is used will depend on the type of document that is being composed; however, the goal of effective organizing is to make the document easier to use, and several organizational patterns are often used in a single document.

Formal Classification

Formal classification is simply grouping facts together based on their common attributes. Each group is often divided into subgroups enabling the facts to be precisely classified. Formal classification requires that each fact can only be present in one grouping, and each grouping must follow the same principle. For example, to classify three animals, each animal should only fit into one group. A tiger, wolf, and zebra could be grouped into categories such as feline, canine, and equine. Each grouping follows the same principle of grouping the animals according to their biological family. A faulty classification would be feline, canine, and mammal because feline and canine are biological families and mammal refers to a biological class. Still further, each species can be broken up into subgroups and divisions like in cattle, Herefords and Jerseys are both cattle, but one is a beef animal and the other is a dairy animal.

Informal Classification

Informal classification can help you create a reader-centered communication when you need to organize information about a large number of items but find it impossible or undesirable to classify them according to the kind of objective characteristic that is necessary for formal classification.

Informal classification differs from formal classification because the groupings need not follow a consistent principle of classification; however, like formal classification, each fact should still only fit into one grouping. For example, a tiger, wolf, and zebra could be classified into canines and African mammals. The groupings do not follow a consistent principle, but each animal can only be grouped into one category. Informal classification is a valid organizational pattern and can be very useful to readers when properly used.

Comparison

Comparisons are used in business documents to help readers make a decision and to help readers understand research findings. Two alternatives are compared to each other based on the same criteria. For example, two building sites may be compared to decide which site to build a warehouse. Site A and Site B could both be compared based on development cost, road access, property taxes, distance to customers, and so on. Comparisons are useful when readers must evaluate several options.

In some ways, comparison is like classification. You begin with a large set of facts about the things you are comparing, and you group the facts around points of comparison that enable your readers to see how the things are like and unlike one another. In comparisons written to support decision-making, points of comparison are called criteria. When writing a comparison, you can choose either of two organizational patterns. Both include the same contents but arrange the contents differently.

Consider, for example, Tiffany's situation. Tiffany's employer has decided to replace the aging machines it uses to stamp out metal parts for the bodies of large trucks. Tiffany has been assigned to investigate the two machines the company is considering. Having amassed hundreds of pages of information, she must now decide how to organize her report to the company's executives. For organizing her comparison, Tiffany can choose to use the divided pattern or the alternating pattern.

**Divided Pattern**
Machine A
Cost
Efficiency
Construction Time
Air Pollution
Et cetera
Machine B
Cost
Efficiency
Construction Time
Air Pollution
Et cetera

**Alternating Pattern**
Cost
Machine A
Machine B
Efficiency
Machine A
Machine B
Construction Time
Machine A
Machine B
Air Pollution
Machine A
Machine B
Et Cetera
Machine A
Machine B

Partitioning

Partitioning refers to describing an object. If a document must be written about a bicycle, a writer may divide the description into the smaller parts of the bicycle. A writer may first describe the braking system, then the gear system, then the frame, seat, and tires. By dividing the document into smaller parts, information becomes easier to locate and the document becomes more useful to the reader.

Guidelines for Describing an Object

Choose a principle of classification suited to your readers and purpose.
Use only one basis for partitioning at a time.
Arrange the parts of your description in a way your readers will find useful.
When describing each part, provide details that your readers will find useful.
Include graphics if they will help your readers understand and use your information about the object.

Segmenting

Segmenting is similar to partitioning, except segmenting refers to describing a process. Typically, a writer will use segmenting when the goal of the document is for the reader to perform the process. Cookbook recipes are often segmented. When describing how to prepare a cake, the process to make the cake must be described first. Then, the process of making the frosting is described. After this, the recipe might explain how to frost the cake. By segmenting the document, the recipe is broken down into smaller, manageable steps. This makes the process easier to perform for the reader.

A general description of a process explains the relationship of events over time. You may have either of two purposes in describing a process:

To enable your readers to perform the process. For example, you may be writing instructions that will enable your readers to analyze the chemicals in a sample of live tissue, make a photovoltaic cell, apply for a loan, or run a computer program.
To enable your readers to understand the process, For example, you might want your readers to understand the following:
- How something is done. For instance, how coal is transformed into synthetic diamonds.
- How something works. For instance, how the lungs provide oxygen to the bloodstream.
- How something happened. For instance, how the United States developed the space programs that eventually landed astronauts on the moon.

Principles of Classification for Segmenting

To determine where to segment the process, you need a principle of classification. Commonly used principles include the time when the steps are performed (first day, second day; spring, summer, fall), the purpose of the steps (to prepare the equipment, to examine the results), and the tools used to perform the steps(for example, table saw, drill press, and so on). Processes can be segmented by a variety of classification principles. Pick the principle that best supports your readers' goals.

Guidelines For Segmenting

Choose a principle for segmenting suited to your readers and your purpose.
Make your smallest groupings manageable.
Describe clearly the relationships among the steps and groups of steps.
Provide enough detail about each step to meet your readers' needs.
Include graphics if they will help your readers understand and use your information about the process.

Cause and Effect

Documents organized by cause and effect help readers understand how one event is caused by another. Cause and effect documents often attempt to persuade readers that a cause and effect relationship actually exists. Cause and effect can be difficult to link. Evidence of the relationship must be chosen carefully. If used correctly, a document organized by cause and effect can be very persuasive and useful to a reader.

At work, you are likely to write about cause and effect for one of two distinct purposes.

to help your readers understand a cause-and-effect relationship.
to persuade your readers that a certain cause-and-effect relationship exists.

The strategies for organizing for these two purposes are somewhat different.

Problem and Solution

Problems and their solutions will be one of the most frequent topics of your on-the-job writing. The problems you discuss may arise from dissatisfaction with some strategy, product, process, or policy. Alternatively, they may arise from an aspiration to achieve a new goal, such as great efficiency, or take advantage of a new opportunity, such as the potential to do business in another country.

The goal of a document organized by problem and solution is to propose a future action. Like cause and effect documents, problem and solution documents need to be persuasive. The writer must first show that a problem exists, and then show that the proposed solution is the best method to solve the problem. Problem and solution documents are very common in business writing and often take the form of a business proposal.

Guidelines For Persuading Readers To Accept Your Proposed Solution

Describe the problem in a way that make it seem significant to your readers.
Describe your method.
When describing your method, explain how it will solve the problem. Show them that your method is the best option for them given their circumstances.
Anticipate and respond to objections.
Specify the benefits.
Acknowledge the weaknesses of your solution. Your audience is going to find weaknesses whether you present them or not. Your ideas will look more credible if you acknowledge the weaknesses of your solution, and then show how they can be overcome.
Include graphics if they will help your readers understand and approve your proposed solution.
Avoid sounding confrontational. This will deter your readers. You need them to open to your ideas, not defensive of their ideas.
Keep in mind that you won't be able to persuade all of your readers, all of the time. Sometimes, you have to accept that they acknowledge your suggestions. In time, they might still change their minds.
Get straight to the point. Business people don't want to waste time listening to you beat around the bush; just give them what they need.

The Writing Process

Whether you know it or not, there’s a process to writing – which many writers follow naturally. If you’re just getting started as a writer, though, or if you always find it a struggle to produce an essay, short story or blog, following the writing process will help.

I’m going to explain what each stage of the writing process involves, and I’ll offer some tips for each section that will help out if you’re still feeling stuck!

1. Prewriting

Have you ever sat staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank document on your computer screen? You might have skipped the vital first stage of the writing process: prewriting. This covers everything you do before starting your rough draft. As a minimum, prewriting means coming up with an idea!

Ideas and Inspiration

Ideas are all around you. If you want to write but you don’t have any ideas, try:

Using a writing prompt to get you started.
Writing about incidents from your daily life, or childhood.
Keeping a notebook of ideas – jotting down those thoughts that occur throughout the day.
Creating a vivid character, and then writing about him/her.

Tip: Once you have an idea, you need to expand on it. Don’t make the mistake of jumping straight into your writing – you’ll end up with a badly structured piece.

Building on Your Idea

These are a couple of popular methods you can use to add flesh to the bones of your idea:

Free writing: Open a new document or start a new page, and write everything that comes into your head about your chosen topic. Don’t stop to edit, even if you make mistakes.
Brainstorming: Write the idea or topic in the center of your page. Jot down ideas that arise from it – sub-topics or directions you could take with the article.

Once you’ve done one or both of these, you need to select what’s going into your first draft.

Planning and Structure

Some pieces of writing will require more planning than others. Typically, longer pieces and academic papers need a lot of thought at this stage.

First, decide which ideas you’ll use. During your free writing and brainstorming, you’ll have come up with lots of thoughts. Some belong in this piece of writing: others can be kept for another time.

Then, decide how to order those ideas. Try to have a logical progression. Sometimes, your topic will make this easy: in this article, for instance, it made sense to take each step of the writing process in order. For a short story, try the eight-point story arc.

2. Writing

Sit down with your plan beside you, and start your first draft (also known as the rough draft or rough copy). At this stage, don’t think about word-count, grammar, spelling and punctuation. Don’t worry if you’ve gone off-topic, or if some sections of your plan don’t fit too well. Just keep writing!

If you’re a new writer, you might be surprised that professional authors go through multiple drafts before they’re happy with their work. This is a normal part of the writing process – no-one gets it right first time.

Some things that many writers find helpful when working on the first draft include:

Setting aside at least thirty minutes to concentrate: it’s hard to establish a writing flow if you’re just snatching a few minutes here and there.
Going somewhere without interruptions: a library or coffee shop can work well, if you don’t have anywhere quiet to write at home.
Switching off distracting programs: if you write your first draft onto a computer, you might find that turning off your Internet connection does wonders for your concentration levels! When I’m writing fiction, I like to use the free program Dark Room (you can find more about it on our collection of writing software).

You might write several drafts, especially if you’re working on fiction. Your subsequent drafts will probably merge elements of the writing stage and the revising stage.

Tip: Writing requires concentration and energy. If you’re a new writer, don’t try to write for hours without stopping. Instead, give yourself a time limit (like thirty minutes) to really focus – without checking your email!

3. Revising

Revising your work is about making “big picture” changes. You might remove whole sections, rewrite entire paragraphs, and add in information which you’ve realized the reader will need. Everyone needs to revise –even talented writers.

The revision stage is sometimes summed up with the A.R.R.R. (Adding, Rearranging, Removing, Replacing) approach:

Adding

What else does the reader need to know? If you haven’t met the required word-count, what areas could you expand on? This is a good point to go back to your prewriting notes – look for ideas which you didn’t use.

Rearranging

Even when you’ve planned your piece, sections may need rearranging. Perhaps as you wrote your essay, you found that the argument would flow better if you reordered your paragraphs. Maybe you’ve written a short story that drags in the middle but packs in too much at the end.

Removing

Sometimes, one of your ideas doesn’t work out. Perhaps you’ve gone over the word count, and you need to take out a few paragraphs. Maybe that funny story doesn’t really fit with the rest of your article.

Replacing

Would more vivid details help bring your piece to life? Do you need to look for stronger examples and quotations to support your argument? If a particular paragraph isn’t working, try rewriting it.

Tip: If you’re not sure what’s working and what isn’t, show your writing to someone else. This might be a writers’ circle, or just a friend who’s good with words. Ask them for feedback. It’s best if you can show your work to several people, so that you can get more than one opinion.

4. Editing

The editing stage is distinct from revision, and needs to be done after revising. Editing involves the close-up view of individual sentences and words. It needs to be done after you’ve made revisions on a big scale: or else you could agonize over a perfect sentence, only to end up cutting that whole paragraph from your piece.

When editing, go through your piece line by line, and make sure that each sentence, phrase and word is as strong as possible. Some things to check for are:

Have you used the same word too many times in one sentence or paragraph? Use a thesaurus to find alternatives.
Are any of your sentences hard to understand? Rewrite them to make your thoughts clear.
Which words could you cut to make a sentence stronger? Words like “just” “quite”, “very”, “really” and “generally” can often be removed.
Are your sentences grammatically correct? Keep a careful look out for problems like subject-verb agreement and staying consistent in your use of the past, present or future tense.
Is everything spelt correctly? Don’t trust your spell-checker – it won’t pick up every mistake. Proofread as many times as necessary.
Have you used punctuation marks correctly? Commas often cause difficulties. You might want to check out the Daily Writing Tips articles on punctuation.

Tip: Print out your work and edit on paper. Many writers find it easier to spot mistakes this way.

5. Publishing

The final step of the writing process is publishing. This means different things depending on the piece you’re working on.

Bloggers need to upload, format and post their piece of completed work.

Students need to produce a final copy of their work, in the correct format. This often means adding a bibliography, ensuring that citations are correct, and adding details such as your student reference number.

Journalists need to submit their piece (usually called “copy”) to an editor. Again, there will be a certain format for this.

Fiction writers may be sending their story to a magazine or competition. Check guidelines carefully, and make sure you follow them. If you’ve written a novel, look for an agent who represents your genre. (There are books like Writer’s Market, published each year, which can help you with this.)

Tip: Your piece of writing might never be published. That’s okay – many bestselling authors wrote lots of stories or articles before they got their first piece published. Nothing that you write is wasted, because it all contributes to your growth as a writer.

Conclusion

The five stages of the writing process are a framework for writing well and easily. You might want to bookmark this post so that you can come back to it each time you start on a new article, blog post, essay or story: use it as a checklist to help you.

Monday, 30 March 2015

The Writing process: Prewriting, Writing, Rewriting