WRITING CENTER
"INFORMATION PICK-UP"
(S.S.C.C.)
PRE-WRITING
AN ESSAY
• WHAT IS PRE-WRITING? WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES OF PRE-WRITING?
• WHAT KIND OF A MENTAL PROCESS
IS PRE-WRITING?
• WHAT ARE SOME VARIOUS TYPES
WHICH MIGHT BE USEFUL TO A STUDENT?
TYPES OF PRE-WRITING
• WHAT IS PRE-WRITING? WHAT
ARE THE PURPOSES OF PRE-WRITING?
Writers often have problems focusing their essays--from the topic to the main idea to the supporting details. Prewriting refers to methods that people use to think over what they wish to write about (topic) and the possible approaches or structures by which they may organize their information (patterns of development).
Pre-writing methods have been created to help writers achieve the following:
• think up and focus on ideas;
• turn intangible thoughts into tangible words on the page;
• collect descriptions, emotions, thoughts, observations, memories--in written and tangible form.
The following, then, are some pre-writing tactics. You will need to try some of these out to see how they feel and to see which one(s) work(s) for you.
• WHAT KIND OF A MENTAL PROCESS IS PRE-WRITING?
Prewriting aims to help a writer focus his/her mind, free it up in order to enable a person to access his/her subconscious and deeper motivations and values and ideas. Creativity is the key to good writing.
Prewriting also should enable a writer to organize his/her thoughts into a workable structure--as a beginning step to writing. Discipline in work and organization forms the other part to writing, besides innovation.
• WHAT ARE SOME VARIOUS TYPES WHICH MIGHT BE USEFUL TO A
STUDENT? TYPES OF PRE-WRITING
LOOPING: LIMITING/FOCUSING A TOPIC: It is important to limit a topic. One strategy that is useful for limiting a
topic is a kind of purposeful free-writing called looping. Besides helping you to decide what aspect
of a subject to discuss, looping will help you to discover the topic and main
idea you want to stress in your essay.
1. Write the assignment you have at the top of a blank sheet of paper.
2. Keeping this topic in mind, write without stopping or rereading for five minutes. Stay close to the topic if you can. If your mind wanders to other things, write them down to get rid of the interference. If you cannot think of anything to say, write, "I can't think of anything" over and over until an idea comes.
3. After 5 minutes, stop writing. Read over what you've written. Try to find the sentence that seems to be the key to the entire passage, the sentence in which you have the most interest. Underline this sentence. You have now completed your first loop.
4. Copy the key sentence you have just identified at the top of a new page.
5. Using this sentence as a starting point, write without stopping for another five minutes. You may develop this sentence, or you may stray from it. Just keep writing.
6. Stop. Look over what you've written, and underline the key sentence. It may be the same one you had before or something different. You have now completed the second loop.
7. Copy the new key sentence at the top of a third page.
8. Once again, use this sentence as a basis for five minutes of writing without stopping. Do not worry if you find yourself repeating ideas from earlier loops or if you suddenly launch into new territory.
9. Stop and underline the focus sentence from your third loop. With luck, you may have discovered a topic and a limited main idea for your essay.
* This technique of looping is explained by Elizabeth Cowan in Writing (1980).
BRAINSTORMING: A brainstorm refers to the total acceptance of a group's and/or an individual's ideas which are all included and written down during a "brainstorm session." The idea behind a brain storm is that no idea will be rejected in this initial stage, in order to foster creativity of thought, ideas, memories, emotions, and other substances important for writing.
After a period of totally accepting all ideas, the writer(s) will get together to arrange the ideas into some kind of logical order and to weed out excess or unnecessary ideas. From there, phrases will be written, then sentences, and finally paragraphs and the entire essay.
CLUSTERING or MIND MAPPING: This is a spatial method for organizing information before writing. The strength of this method is that it allows a writer to place information in a spatial plane which makes for easier writing for some.
Below is an example of a cluster for
writing about different aspects of
apartment-hunting.
--------------------------------
first & last month's rent; proximity to grocery store,
utilities: water, gas, bus line, work place,
garbage, electricity, heating; post office, schools,
security deposits; hospital, zoo, library, etc.
cleaning deposit; RENT/FEES LOCATION safe neighborhood
late rent fees,
APARTMENT
PARKING: distance from home, car
security, access to hose for car
washes, car port, parking lot
lighting
APPEARANCE:
style of building and architecture,
deck or patio, suitability for guests,
size of complex, size of unit in square AMENITIES: swimming pool, cable
meters, carpeting, paint job, t.v., others
interior, furnished/unfurnished apartment
maintenance of grounds,
MANAGEMENT:
responsiveness, following the law,
lease agreement and policies, acceptable
noise level
SECURITY CONCERNS: police responsiveness, apartment structure & lighting, other tenants, types of tenants, fire alarm installations, age of building and grounds, dead-bolt locks, security guards, fencing, etc.
WRITING BY TABLE: Sometimes having a visual table helps authors to identify clearly the differences between contrasted objects. For example, you could have a table comparing two name brands of pencils:
______________________________________________________________________ THINGS BEING COMPARED or
CONTRASTED:
PENCIL # A PENCIL #B
FACTORS BEING CONSIDERED
______________________________________________________________________
1. VARIETY OF SIZES
______________________________________________________________________
2. TYPES OF COLORS AND
STYLES
______________________________________________________________________
3. STRENGTH OF LEAD
______________________________________________________________________
4. PRICE
______________________________________________________________________
5. ERASER
______________________________________________________________________
6. FAME OF BRAND
______________________________________________________________________
7. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
______________________________________________________________________
BLOCK METHOD:
In this method, you may write totally about Pencil #A first and then Pencil #B second, with the factors mentioned in the same order for both. This is called the "block method" of writing a comparison-and-contrast paper.
POINT-BY-POINT METHOD:
On the other hand, you may write about each factor in the "point-by-point method", first for Pencil #A, then for Pencil #B. You would thoroughly discuss each point for A and B, then move on to the next point.
DRAWING A TREE DIAGRAM: A tree diagram is another visual representation of an essay. The one major challenge of using tree diagrams is the difficulty of predicting in advance which way the branches may spread.
TOPIC:
______________________________________________________________________
MAIN IDEA MAIN IDEA MAIN IDEA MAIN IDEA CONCLUSION
SUPPORT SUPPORT SUPPORT
SUPPORT SUPPORT SUPPORT
SUPPORT
FREE-WRITING: Using this method, the writer merely sits down with a piece of paper and starts writing about a general idea or subject. He/she does not focus on proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax--or any of the mechanics aspects of writing. The idea is only to write in a concentrated way for a certain period of time (20 minutes?) and bring as many ideas and memories up as possible.
Later, the writer will sort through the ideas and choose the most effective ones to develop further.
Do
refer to Peter Elbow's essay "Freewriting" kept in the Writing Center
"Reference" binder.
MAKING LISTS (sometimes named BRAINSTORMING): Writers here simply "list" as many things and ideas as possible.
Then, they should organize the best ideas into a logical order.
A list may contain words and/or phrases.
For example, if a person were to write an essay about difficulties encountered while embarking on international air travel, he/she might form a list willy-nilly at first:
LIST:
customs regulations and checks,
long lines at the ticket counter,
heavy baggage,
importance of having passport and visa and other documentation,
difficult passengers,
expensive airport fees,
broken luggage wheels,
rude clerks, airsickness and "barf bags",
dealing with foreign language passengers,
boredom riding on planes for long flights,
noisy passengers on the plane,
lost baggage,
rapacious taxi drivers with broken meters and $ signs in their eyes,
delays,
acrophobia in planes,
bad weather,
bad food and diarrhea, etc.
DEFINING THE WRITING SITUATION: One strategy that can be useful in planning almost any piece of writing is to consider carefully the elements that work together to create what is variously called the writer's stance, the context, or the writing situation.
There are four elements in any writing situation. An alteration in one may cause subtle changes in all the others.
Here, the writer is making a plan for writing--not writing an essay draft.
CONTENT
general area
specific issue
point
structure
style and tone
WRITER FORM expertise pre-determined or pre-set
attitudes variable, flexible form
purpose (assigned sometimes)
AUDIENCE
expertise
attitudes
purpose
The content of a piece of writing involves
• the GENERAL TOPIC or SUBJECT MATTER,
• the SPECIFIC ISSUE OR QUESTION to be addressed, and
• the POINT OR ANSWER provided in the writing.
The most condensed expression of the content of an essay would be the POINT STATEMENT OR THESIS.
Another aspect of the content is the STRUCTURE OR DESIGN of the writing, the plan of order that the writer has carried out.
Finally, the writer's STYLE AND TONE--word choices, sentence length and sentence structure, subjectivity or objectivity--become almost impossible to separate from the message of the writing.
The writer's life, personality, and expectations might intrigue a reader.
Three things are vitally important.
1) The first is the writer's EXPERTISE in dealing with the content.
2) The second is the writer's BELIEFS, VALUES AND ATTITUDES, which may influence how the writer interprets experience. Readers who respect a writer's knowledge and values will have confidence in the writer. A subtext in most pieces of writing is the underlying "moral universe" or value system the writer apparently ascribes to.
3) Readers need a sense of the writer's PURPOSE. This indicates how the writer expects the audience to be affected by the presentation of the content.
The audience's expertise, attitudes, knowledge base and purposes should be taken into consideration before a piece of writing is written. A writer writes to the audience to communicate some information. It is crucial to know the audience's sophistication in order to address their informational needs for better conveyance of the information.
The form usually is determined by the content and the needs of the audience. Those two factors determine whether a writer uses formal or informal language; writes in long or short or medium paragraphs; uses difficult specialized diction or simple language; chooses one type of essay form (pattern of development or "rhetorical mode"--such as definition, persuasion and argumentation, classification and division, comparison and contrast, analogy, description, narration, etc.) over another; and so on.
OUTLINING: This is one of the most common tools for organizing an essay. Of course, a writer needs to have a fairly strong sense of what he/she wants to write and how to approach it before he/she can put together an outline of the information. An outline is organized in the order in which the information is to be presented from top down.
Through indentation, an outline also shows the relationship between primary, secondary, tertiary points, etc. The number of topics and details depends on the subject.
Title
I. Main Point #1
A. Supporting Detail
1. Specific Detail:
a. Specific Detail:
i. Specific Detail:
ii. Specific Detail:
B. Supporting Detail
1. Specific Detail:
2. Specific Detail:
3. Specific Detail:
a. Specific Detail:
b. Specific Detail:
c. Specific Detail:
i. Specific Detail:
ii. Specific Detail:
II. Main Point #2
A. Supporting Detail...
III. Main Point #3...
IV. Conclusion
*Note: Specific details could include descriptions, expert testimony, direct quotations, poll findings, statistics, facts, established definitions, observations, and others.
(Revised 1998)