3.2: The Writing Process Step 1- Prewriting

Freewriting   

Freewriting is an exercise in which you write freely about any topic for a set amount of time (usually three to five minutes). During the time limit, you may jot down any thoughts that come to your mind.   

The goal of freewriting is to generate ideas by recording, as quickly as you can, the flow of thoughts going through your mind. You simply consider the topic and then write down what you are thinking about that topic.  You may also think about readings that you have enjoyed or that have challenged your thinking to help you explore ideas.  

At this stage, though, you do not censor or reject any thoughts, nor do you try to organize them. You do not bother to cross out or correct anything—that comes later. You also do not pause to think about where to place a comma or to determine what is exactly the right word. In fact, you do not pause at all; instead, you write nonstop, and if you run out of ideas, you continue writing something like “my mind is blank my mind is blank my mind is blank . . . ” until another thought comes to mind. Then you record that thought. Do not worry about neatness because freewriting is for your eyes only; it is a tool for the writer to get some ideas flowing, and readers do not see it.  

Quickly recording your thoughts on paper will help you discover what you have to say about a topic. When writing quickly, try not to doubt or question your ideas. Allow yourself to write freely and unselfconsciously. Once you start writing with few limitations, you may find you have more to say than you first realized. Your flow of thoughts can lead you to discover even more ideas about the topic. Freewriting may even lead you to discover another topic that excites you even more.  

Below is a freewriting example for social media:  

I know a lot of people use social media, not just teens and young adults.  Parents and even grandparents use it.  Some old people don’t know what it is, though. Only older people like parents and them use Facebook. Probably Pinterest, too. Twitter seems to be used for celebrities and politics.  TikTok got popular during the pandemic, I think.  That is when it seemed to be talked about a lot anyway.  A lot of people of all ages are trying it out.  It is usually funny or cool dances.  I know older people who say their Facebook got hacked but really someone just created a new Facebook using their name.  So they are being imitated online. But often whoever hacked them will send all of their friends hugely inappropriate videos.  Sometimes the imitator will try to message the person’s friends and scam them for $$.  People have so much stuff online that it is hard to keep track of it all.  Maybe that is why the imitators or hackers can do it?  Instagram is videos and pictures, not statuses with words like Facebook.  It is part of FB though.  They own a lot; are taking over.  

The freewrite above has ideas that are wide ranging and not necessarily in order. A writer will need to organize these thoughts to decide what is worth keeping.  In a freewrite using different colored highlighters to group similar ideas together is a great way to do that.  You can even use another pre-writing technique to do this as well. The next pre-writng explanations and examples use the same topic and illustrate how this can be done.  

 

Listing  

This method is slightly more directed than freewriting. For this type of brainstorming, you start listing everything you know about your topic. At first, your list will probably contain a lot of items that seem barely connected. Once you have a page covered with as many listed items as you can generate, however, you can look them over and begin to find elements they have in common. Some will appear more important, or easier to write about, than others. Some will cover broader areas and may be suited to becoming topic sentences or larger chunks of your paper. Others will fall under these broader areas and serve as examples or details that help explain the larger ideas.  

  

Below is a list made from the topic:  social media  

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok  

Trolls  

Comments  

Travel  

Photoshop  

Memes  

Privacy  

Pictures  

Perfect pics  

Hackers/scammers  

Videos  

Happy people  

Products  

Dances  

Posts  

Bullying  

  

The list above is just a random collection of ideas which need to be organized.  Below, numbers have been added to the list of brainstormed ideas to group them together.   

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok  

Trolls -2  

Comments -1  

Travel -3  

Photoshop –3  

Memes -4  

Privacy -2  

Pictures -1  

Perfect pics –3  

Hackers/scammers -2  

Videos -1  

Happy people -3  

Products -4  

Dances -1  

Posts -1  

Bullying –2  

  

Those grouped as 1 might be a subtopic point called “sharing,” 2 “security,” 3 “positive presentation,” 4 “business posts.” This will not necessarily be the order the points are addressed in the essay; it is just an effective way to group them.  You could also use alphabetical, A, B, C, etc. labels as well.   A writer can write an essay that incorporates each of the groups.  Another option is to focus on one of the numbered groups and develop it further.   

One group in this list might be combined with another or thrown out.  Which one do you think it is?  

Asking Questions  

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? These are the questions that reporters and journalists use to gather information for their stories. The questions are often called the 5Ws and H questions, after their initial letters.  Below are some general examples of the questions:  

Who:  Who is affected by this topic?  Who is involved?  

What: What are the key factors of the topic?  What are the implications of the topic?  

When:  When does this take place?  Is it current or historical?  

Where:  Where does it take place?  

Why:  Why is this important?  Why do people care about this topic?  

How:  How does this affect people, society, the world?  How can it change?  

In everyday situations, you pose these kinds of questions to get more information. Asking these types of questions will help you with the writing process. As you choose your topic, answering these questions can help you revisit the ideas you already have and generate new ways to think about your topic. You may also discover aspects of the topic that are unfamiliar to you and that you would like to learn more about. All these idea-gathering techniques will help you plan for future work on your assignment.    

Here is a 5W & H topic example for the previous social media topic:  

Who:  Who uses social media?  

What: What are the types of social media that people use? What do people do on the different social media sites?  

When:  When do people use social media?  

Where:  Where do people access social media from most?  Smart phones or computers?  

Why:  Why do people use social media?  

How:  How does social media affect people?  Socially, personally, individually?  How does it affect society?  

You can see that the answers to these questions, especially the how and why, can help you develop a direction for what to write about for a topic.  These questions might lead you to question the value of social media depending on how you answer them.  

Mind Mapping/Clustering  

Mind mapping/clustering allows you to visualize your ideas on paper using circles, lines, and arrows. In this technique ideas are broken down and clustered, or grouped, together. Many writers like this method because the shapes show how the ideas relate or connect, and writers can find a focused topic from the mapped connections. Using mind mapping/clustering, you might discover interesting connections between topics that you had not thought of before. To create a mind map/cluster, start with your general topic in a circle in the center of a blank sheet of paper. Then write specific ideas around it and use lines or arrows to connect them together. Add and cluster as many ideas as you can think of.  

Below is an example of a cluster using the same social media topic:  

In the cluster above, the student’s largest circle contains the general topic, social media, and a point about it. Then, the general topic branches into four subtopics written in four smaller circles: sharing, security, positive presentation, and business posts. The subtopic, security, branches into even more specific topics: privacy, hackers and scammers, and trolls. Then, the student drew circles from the other subtopics and wrote more specific ideas.  The cluster can then be used to develop an essay with each of the four subtopic circles becoming body paragraphs in the essay.  Another option is to focus on one of the subtopic groups and develop it further into its own essay.  A second cluster may be needed to do that.  

Note: The purpose of prewriting is to find and explore ideas so that you will be prepared to write.  The key to effective prewriting is to use the techniques that work best for your thinking process or the type of essay you are writing.  Keep an open mind and try all options to find what works best.