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Using Pre-Writing Strategies

The document discusses various pre-writing strategies that can be used to generate and clarify ideas before beginning the writing process. It describes techniques like brainstorming, clustering/mapping, and freewriting that allow writers to discover topics and ideas. Brainstorming involves rapidly listing all ideas that come to mind, clustering maps connections between a main topic and related subtopics, and freewriting flows ideas in a stream of consciousness without editing. These pre-writing methods help writers determine their purpose, audience, topic, and tone before drafting their paper.

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rotimasronelio
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119 views

Using Pre-Writing Strategies

The document discusses various pre-writing strategies that can be used to generate and clarify ideas before beginning the writing process. It describes techniques like brainstorming, clustering/mapping, and freewriting that allow writers to discover topics and ideas. Brainstorming involves rapidly listing all ideas that come to mind, clustering maps connections between a main topic and related subtopics, and freewriting flows ideas in a stream of consciousness without editing. These pre-writing methods help writers determine their purpose, audience, topic, and tone before drafting their paper.

Uploaded by

rotimasronelio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Using Pre-Writing Strategies

Presented by: Ronelio Rotimas


Defining Pre-Writing
The first stage of the writing process is pre-writing, which pertains to
different techniques that help you discover ideas before writing the first
draft of a paper. During pre-writing, you use a variety of strategies to find
out things that interest you about topic or new ways of thinking about it. It
also helps you identify what else you need to know about a topic. These
are valuable and time-saving because determining a focus early in the
writing process will help you effectively plan and execute your research
and writing.

In the pre-writing stage, it is important to refrain from critiquing your ideas


while they have not yet been fully formed. You should approach it with a
relaxed and open state of mind. The pre-writing stage allows you to
communicate with yourself so you can discover what you want to
communicate to your readers.
Determining the Writing Situation
The pre-writing stage begins with knowing the kind
of paper that you will be required to write. What are
you being asked to do? Look at key words in the
instructions. You might be tasked to do a variety of
things when writing including, analyzing a text,
comparing your ideas with the author’s ideas,
summarizing the selection, or proposing a solution to
an issue. Also, consider how long the paper should
be. Looking carefully at the assignment will help you
know what to expect when writing.
Determining the Writing Situation
The next thing to do is to determine the writing
situation, or the context of your assignment.
The context can be clarified by initially thinking
about the purpose and audience of your paper.
At some points in the writing process, decisions
about these factors may be changed, but it is
important to always consider how these will
affect your work.
Determining the Writing Situation
The first consideration is determining
your purpose. This is the reason why you are
writing. When you think about your purpose,
you begin to make decisions about form,
content, length, organization, support, and tone.
Determining the Writing Situation
To write effectively, it is always best to assume that
you are writing to be read. Your audience is your
target reader. You must recognize who your readers
are and anticipate their expectations, background,
and knowledge of the topic if you are to tailor-fit
your writing to their tastes. Identifying your audience
helps you determine how you want them to respond
to your writing, and thus helps you write with that in
mind. Your readers will feel more involved and you
will have a clearer appreciation of your purpose.
Determining the Writing Situation
After you have determined your audience and purpose, you are
ready to think about your paper’s topic. This results from a
broader subject that may be found in the assignment, or could
be something you are free to think about. The topic is the
subject or the specific issue that your paper will discuss. It is
always best to limit your topic, because if you write about a
broad subject, your essay will lack focus. The topic should both
be related to the assignment and interesting to you. It must be
something that you know or are willing to learn more about,
since you must establish your credibility by showing you have
enough knowledge on your topic.
Determining the Writing Situation
After you have thought about your purpose,
audience, and topic, it would be good to
consider the tone you plan to use. This refers to
the attitudes and feelings you want your writing
to reflect toward your purpose, topic, audience,
and yourself. These are manifested in your
chosen point-of-view (first, second, or third),
sentence structure (long and short sentences),
and chosen words (connotation and denotation).
Using Pre-Writing Strategies
Pre-writing strategies use writing to generate and
clarify ideas. While many writers have
traditionally created outlines before beginning
writing, there are other possible prewriting
activities.

• Brainstorming
• Clustering or mapping
• Freewriting
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is one of the better and more popular
methods of discovering your writing topic. All you
need to do is begin at the top of a sheet of paper and
list down everything that comes into your mind as
fast as you can for a certain amount of time (say, five
minutes, for example). The aim of a brainstorming
exercise is not to produce a logical flow of ideas but
to provide yourself as many choices for your topic as
possible. You can be free, whimsical, and personal
with the list as you please.
Brainstorming
Read on below for a sample brainstorming list
for a formal theme with a free choice of topic:
• Southeast Asia
• Superheroes: Iron Man, Captain America
• Eating halo-halo on an April morning
• White beaches in Boracay
• Hatred of Science and Math
• Jose Rizal dying at Luneta Park
Brainstorming
You can also try to connect your ideas, and see
what meaning you can create. These
connections between ideas can also be writing
topics in themselves. (For example, “Eating halo-
halo on an April morning” and “White beaches
in Boracay” talk about summer in the
Philippines, which can be your chosen writing
topic.
Clustering or Mapping
Clustering or mapping is another technique that you can
use to find your writing topic. Start by writing a word or
phrase at the center of the page and encircle it; this
becomes your main topic. The, think of other words and
phrases related to that main topic, write them down,
encircle them, and draw lines connecting them to the main
topic. These become your subtopics. Form there, you can
branch off the subtopics with other supporting ideas, or
you can think of new subtopics related again to the main
topic. Just make sure that each word or phrase you write
down is connected to the word or phrase that suggested it.
Clustering or Mapping
When you are done drawing your cluster, browser through all the ideas and
pick one that you would like to talk about. If you want to expand on your
chosen idea, you can also use the words and phrases you wrote around it.
The beauty of this pre-writing method is that it teaches you how ti dissect an
idea, or how to develop it further, Study the sample cluster below, and use it
as a model for your own cluster.
Freewriting
• Uses the force of narration to draw a stream of connected ideas out of the
writer’s mind. Freewriting is writing down your thoughts nonstop, in the exact
order, language, and form in that you think them.

• It maintains some coherence between a writer’s thoughts. Furthermore, the


key to using this method successfully is speed; you write as quickly as you can
to create constant momentum for your thoughts to keep on flowing. Writing
fast can also get you writing down thoughts you did not see coming. The rules
of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and style do not matter here; run with
your words to catch that subject you have always itched to talk about.
Example of Freewriting
• Write about the following topic: Talk about a scary dream you once had.

In my dream, I was coming back home from school


really late. There were no lights in the street and I
could hear the sounds of meowing cats and barking
dogs. I walked faster and faster and almost fell into a
big puddle of mud. Suddenly I saw a big man with a
mask on his face. He told me to give him my money. I
threw a rock at him and ran home. When I opened
the door I found the man sitting in my favorite chair!
Now that you have learned different pre-writing
strategies, you may want to use a writing journal to
record your ideas. A good way to sustain writing
practice is the habit of journal writing. The
Merriam-Webster defines a journal as "a book in
which you write down your personal experiences
and thoughts "A lot of writers keep journals for
indefinite periods of time because they always find
something interesting in their lives to talk about.
That’s All Thank You

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