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5.1: Apply Prewriting Models

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    4538
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    Learning Objectives
    • Use prewriting strategies to choose a topic and narrow the focus

    If you think that a blank sheet of paper or a blinking cursor on the computer screen is a scary sight, you are not alone. Many writers, students, and employees find that beginning to write can be intimidating. When faced with a blank page, however, experienced writers remind themselves that writing, like other everyday activities, is a process. Every process, from writing to cooking to bike riding to learning to use a new cell phone will get significantly easier with practice.

    Just as you need a recipe, ingredients, and proper tools to cook a delicious meal, you also need a plan, resources, and adequate time to create a good written composition. In other words, writing is a process that requires steps and strategies to accomplish your goals.

    These are the five steps in the writing process:

    • Prewriting
    • Outlining the structure of ideas
    • Writing a rough draft
    • Revising
    • Editing

    Effective writing can be simply described as good ideas that are expressed well and arranged in the proper order. This chapter will give you the chance to work on all these important aspects of writing. Although many more prewriting strategies exist, this chapter covers six: using experience and observations, freewriting, asking questions, brainstorming, mapping, and searching the Internet. Using the strategies in this chapter can help you overcome the fear of the blank page and confidently begin the writing process.

    Prewriting

    Prewriting is the stage of the writing process during which you transfer your abstract thoughts into more concrete ideas in ink on paper (or in type on a computer screen). Although prewriting techniques can be helpful in all stages of the writing process, the following four strategies are best used when initially deciding on a topic:

    1. Using experience and observations
    2. Reading
    3. Freewriting
    4. Asking questions

    At this stage in the writing process, it is okay if you choose a general topic. Later you will learn more prewriting strategies that will narrow the focus of the topic.

    Choosing a Topic

    In addition to understanding that writing is a process, writers also understand that choosing a good general topic for an assignment is an essential step. Sometimes your instructor will give you an idea to begin an assignment, and other times your instructor will ask you to come up with a topic on your own. A good topic not only covers what an assignment will be about but also fits the assignment’s purpose and its audience.

    In this chapter, you will follow a writer named Mariah as she prepares a piece of writing. You will also be planning one of your own. The first important step is for you to tell yourself why you are writing (to inform, to explain, or some other purpose) and for whom you are writing. Write your purpose and your audience on your own sheet of paper, and keep the paper close by as you read and complete exercises in this chapter.

    My purpose: ____________________________________________

    My audience: ____________________________________________

    Using Experience and Observations

    When selecting a topic, you may want to consider something that interests you or something based on your own life and personal experiences. Even everyday observations can lead to interesting topics. After writers think about their experiences and observations, they often take notes on paper to better develop their thoughts. These notes help writers discover what they have to say about their topic.

    Tip

    Have you seen an attention-grabbing story on your local news channel? Many current issues appear on television, in magazines, and on the Internet. These can all provide inspiration for your writing.

    Reading

    Reading plays a vital role in all the stages of the writing process, but it first figures in the development of ideas and topics. Different kinds of documents can help you choose a topic and also develop that topic. For example, a magazine advertising the latest research on the threat of global warming may catch your eye in the supermarket. The cover may interest you, and you may consider global warming as a topic. Or maybe a novel’s courtroom drama sparks your curiosity of a particular lawsuit or legal controversy.

    After you choose a topic, critical reading is essential to the development of a topic. While reading almost any document, you evaluate the author’s point of view by thinking about the main idea and the support. When you judge the author’s argument, you discover more about not only the author’s opinion but also your own. If this step already seems daunting, remember that even the best writers need to use prewriting strategies to generate ideas.

    Tip

    The steps in the writing process may seem time consuming at first, but following these steps will save you time in the future. The more you plan in the beginning by reading and using prewriting strategies, the less time you may spend writing and editing later because your ideas will develop more swiftly.

    Prewriting strategies depend on your critical reading skills. Reading prewriting exercises (and outlines and drafts later in the writing process) will further develop your topic and ideas. As you continue to follow the writing process, you will see how Mariah uses critical reading skills to assess her own prewriting exercises.

    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 mind. Try not to worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Instead, write as quickly as you can without stopping. If you get stuck, just copy the same word or phrase over and over until you come up with a new thought.

    Writing often comes easier when you have a personal connection with the topic you have chosen. Remember, to generate ideas in your freewriting, you may also think about readings that you have enjoyed or that have challenged your thinking. Doing this may lead your thoughts in interesting directions.

    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.

    Look at Mariah’s example. The instructor allowed the members of the class to choose their own topics, and Mariah thought about her experiences as a communications major. She used this freewriting exercise to help her generate more concrete ideas from her own experience.

    Tip

    Some prewriting strategies can be used together. For example, you could use experience and observations to come up with a topic related to your course studies. Then you could use freewriting to describe your topic in more detail and figure out what you have to say about it.

    Last semester my favorite class was about mass media. We got to study radio and television. People say we watch too much television, and even though I try not to, I end up watching a few reality shows just to relax. Everyone has to relax! It’s too hard to relax when something like news (my husband watches all the time) is on because it’s too scary now. Too much bad news, not enough good news. News. Newspapers I don’t read as much anymore. I can get the headlines on my homepage when I check my e-mail. E-mail could be considered mass media too these days. I used to go to the video store a few times a week before I started school, but now the only way I know what movies are current is to listen fro the Oscar nominations. We have cable but we can’t afford the movie channels, so I sometimes look at older movies late at night. UGH. A few of them get played again and again until you’re sick of them. My husband thinks I’m crazy, but sometimes there are old black-and-whites on from the 1920s and ‘40s. I could never live my life in black-and-white. I like the home decorating shows and love how people use color on their walls. Makes rooms look so bright. When we buy a home, if we ever can, I’ll use lots of color. Some of these shows even show you how to do major renovations by yourself. Knock down walls and everything. Not for me- or my husband. I’m handier than he is. I wonder if they can make a reality show about us!

    Exercise 5.1

    Take another look at the possible topics for your expository essay assignment then freewrite about that topic. Write without stopping for five minutes. After you finish, read over what you wrote. How well do you think you will be able to develop this topic?

    Possible expository essay questions:

    Narrative: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized narrative essay.

    Your first day of post-secondary school

    A moment of success or failure

    An experience that helped you mature

    Illustration: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized illustration essay.

    The media and the framing of crime

    Child obesity

    The effect of violent video games on behaviour

    Description: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized description essay.

    How to reduce weight

    How to remain relevant in your workplace

    How to get a good night’s sleep

    Classification: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized classification essay.

    Ways of boring people

    Methods of studying for a final exam

    Extreme weather

    Process analysis: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized process analysis essay.

    How to complain effectively

    How to apply the Heimlich manoeuvre or other lifesaving technique

    How a particular accident occurred

    Definition: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized definition essay.

    Right to privacy

    Integrity

    Heroism

    Compare and contrast: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized compare and contrast essay.

    Two ways of losing weight: one healthy, one dangerous

    Two ways to break a bad habit

    An active and a passive student

    Cause and effect: Choose one of the topics below and relate your ideas in a clearly organized cause and effect essay.

    Plagiarism and cheating in school. Give its effects.

    Bullying. Give its effects.

    A personal, unreasonable fear or irritation. Give its causes.

    Asking Questions

    Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? In everyday situations, you pose these kinds of questions to get information. Who will be my partner for the project? When is the next meeting? Why is my car making that odd noise?

    You seek the answers to these questions to gain knowledge, to better understand your daily experiences, and to plan for the future. Asking these types of questions will also 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.

    When Mariah reread her freewriting notes, she found she had rambled and her thoughts were disjointed. She realized that the topic that interested her most was the one she started with: the media. She then decided to explore that topic by asking herself questions about it. Her purpose was to refine media into a topic she felt comfortable writing about. To see how asking questions can help you choose a topic, take a look at the following chart in Figure 5.1: Asking Questions that Mariah completed to record her questions and answers. She asked herself the questions that reporters and journalists use to gather information for their stories. The questions are often called the 5WH questions, after their initial letters.

    Questions: Who? Answers: I use media. Students, teachers, parents, employers and employees- almost everyone uses media. Questions? What? Answers: The media can be a lot of things. Television, radio, e-mail (I think), newspapers, magazines, books. Questions, Where? Answers: the media is almost everything now. It's in homes, at work, in cars, even on cell phones! Questions: When? Answers: Media has been around for a long time, but seems a lot more important now. Questions: Why? Answers: Hmm. This is a good questions. I don't know why there is mass media. Maybe we have it because we have the technology now. Or people live far away from their families and they have to stay in touch. Questions: How? Answers: Well, media is possible because of the technology inventions but I don't know how they all work!

    Figure 5.1 - Asking Questions

    Tip

    Prewriting is very purpose driven; it does not follow a set of hard and fast rules. The purpose of prewriting is to find and explore ideas so that you will be prepared to write. A prewriting technique like asking questions can help you both find a topic and explore it. The key to effective prewriting is to use the techniques that work best for your thinking process. Freewriting may not seem to fit your thinking process, but keep an open mind. It may work better than you think. Perhaps brainstorming a list of topics might better fit your personal style. Mariah found freewriting and asking questions to be fruitful strategies to use. In your own prewriting, use the 5WH questions in any way that benefits your planning.

    Exercise 5.2

    Using the prewriting you completed in Exercise 5.1,read each question and use your own paper to answer the 5WH questions. As with Mariah when she explored her writing topic for more detail, it is okay if you do not know all the answers. If you do not know an answer, use your own opinion to speculate, or guess. You may also use factual information from books or articles you previously read on your topic. Later in the chapter, you will read about additional ways (like searching the Internet) to answer your questions and explore your guesses.

    5WH Questions

    Who?

    _____________________________________________________

    What?

    _____________________________________________________

    Where?

    _____________________________________________________

    When?

    _____________________________________________________

    Why?

    _____________________________________________________

    How?

    _____________________________________________________

    Now that you have completed some of the prewriting exercises, you may feel less anxious about starting a paper from scratch. With some ideas down on paper (or saved on a computer), writers are often more comfortable continuing the writing process. After identifying a good general topic, you, too, are ready to continue the process.

    Tip

    You may find that you need to adjust your topic as you move through the writing stages (and as you complete the exercises in this chapter). If the topic you have chosen is not working, you can repeat the prewriting activities until you find a better one.

    More Prewriting Techniques: Narrowing the Focus

    The prewriting techniques of freewriting and asking questions helped Mariah think more about her topic. The following additional prewriting strategies would help her (and you) narrow the focus of the topic:

    Brainstorming

    Idea mapping

    Searching the Internet

    Narrowing the focus means breaking up the topic into subtopics, or more specific points. Generating a lot of subtopics helps in selecting the ones that fit the assignment and appeal to the writer and the audience.

    After rereading her syllabus, Mariah realized her general topic, mass media, was too broad for her class’s short paper requirement. Three pages would not be enough to cover all the concerns in mass media today. Mariah also realized that although her readers are other communications majors who are interested in the topic, they may want to read a paper about a particular issue in mass media.

    Brainstorming

    Brainstorming is similar to list making. You can make a list on your own or in a group with your classmates. Start with a blank sheet of paper (or a blank computer document) and write your general topic across the top. Underneath your topic, make a list of more specific ideas. Think of your general topic as a broad category and the list items as things that fit into that category. Often you will find that one item can lead to the next, creating a flow of ideas that can help you narrow your focus to a more specific paper topic.

    The following is Mariah’s brainstorming list:

    Mass Media: Magazines, Newspapers, Broadcasting, Radio, Television, DVD, Gaming/video games, Internet, Cell phones, Smartphones, Text messages, Tiny cameras, GPS

    From this list, Mariah could narrow her focus to a particular technology under the broad category of mass media.

    Writing at Work

    Imagine you have to write an email to your current boss explaining your prior work experience, but you do not know where to start. Before you begin the email, you can use the brainstorming technique to generate a list of employers, duties, and responsibilities that fall under the general topic of work experience.

    Idea Mapping

    Idea mapping allows you to visualize your ideas on paper using circles, lines, and arrows. This technique is also known as clustering because 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 connections mapped. Using idea mapping, you might discover interesting connections between topics that you had not thought of before.

    To create an idea map, start with your general topic in a circle in the centre 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.

    Mariah tried idea mapping in addition to brainstorming. Figure 5.2: Idea Map shows what she created.

    idea map

    Figure 5.2 - Idea Map: High definition, Cable, Digital Recording, TV, DVDs, Blu-ray, Mass Media, Radio, Music, Downloads vs. CDs, Piracy

    Notice Mariah’s largest circle contains her general topic: mass media. Then, the general topic branches into two subtopics written in two smaller circles: television and radio. The subtopic television branches into even more specific topics: cable and DVDs. From there, Mariah drew more circles and wrote more specific ideas: high definition and digital recording from cable and Blu-ray from DVDs. The radio topic led Mariah to draw connections between music, downloads versus CDs, and, finally, piracy.

    From this idea map, Mariah saw she could consider narrowing the focus of her mass media topic to the more specific topic of music piracy.

    Searching the Internet

    Using search engines on the Internet is a good way to see what kinds of websites are available on your topic. Writers use search engines not only to understand more about the topic’s specific issues but also to get better acquainted with their audience.

    Tip

    Look back at the chart you completed in Exercise 5.2. Did you guess at any of the answers? Searching the Internet may help you find answers to your questions and confirm your guesses. Be choosy about the websites you use. Make sure they are reliable sources for the kind of information you seek.

    When you search the Internet, type some key words from your broad topic or words from your narrowed focus into your browser’s search engine (many good general and specialized search engines are available for you to try). Then look over the results for relevant and interesting articles.

    Results from an Internet search show writers the following information:

    Who is talking about the topic

    How the topic is being discussed

    What specific points are currently being discussed about the topic

    Tip

    If the search engine results are not what you are looking for, revise your key words and search again. Some search engines also offer suggestions for related searches that may give you better results.

    Mariah typed the words music piracy from her idea map into the search engine Google (see Figure 5.3 Useful Search Engine Results).

    Google search result music piracy

    Figure 5.3 - Useful Search Engine Results

    Note

    Not all the results online search engines return will be useful or reliable. Carefully consider the reliability of an online source before selecting a topic based on it. Remember that factual information can be verified in other sources, both online and in print. If you have doubts about any information you find, either do not use it or identify it as potentially unreliable.

    The results from Mariah’s search included websites from university publications, personal blogs, online news sources, and a lot of legal cases sponsored by the recording industry. Reading legal jargon made Mariah uncomfortable with the results, so she decided to look further. Reviewing her map, she realized that she was more interested in consumer aspects of mass media, so she refocused her search to media technology and the sometimes confusing array of expensive products that fill electronics stores. Now, Mariah considers a topic on the products that have fed the mass media boom in everyday lives.

    Exercise 5.3

    In Exercise 5.2, you chose a possible topic and explored it by answering questions about it using the 5WH questions. However, this topic may still be too broad. Here, in this exercise, choose and complete one of the prewriting strategies to narrow the focus. Use brainstorming, idea mapping, or searching the Internet.

    Collaboration: Please share with a classmate and compare your answers. Share what you found and what interests you about the possible topic(s).

    Prewriting strategies are a vital first step in the writing process. First they help you first choose a broad topic, and then they help you narrow the focus of the topic to a more specific idea. Use Checklist 5.1: Topic Checklist to help you with this step.

    Checklist 5.1: Developing a Good Topic

    Using this checklist can help you decide if your narrowed topic is a good topic for your assignment.

    Am I interested in this topic?

    Would my audience be interested?

    Do I have prior knowledge or experience with this topic? If so, would I be comfortable exploring this topic and sharing my experiences?

    Do I want to learn more about this topic?

    Is this topic specific?

    Does it fit the length of the assignment?

    An effective topic ensures that you are ready for the next step. With your narrowed focus in mind, answer the bulleted questions in the checklist for developing a good topic. If you can answer “yes” to all the questions, write your topic on the line below. If you answer “no” to any of the questions, think about another topic or adjust the one you have and try the prewriting strategies again.

    My narrowed topic: ____________________________________________

    key takeaways
    • All writers rely on steps and strategies to begin the writing process.
    • The steps in the writing process are prewriting, outlining, writing a rough draft, revising, and editing.
    • Prewriting is the transfer of ideas from abstract thoughts into words, phrases, and sentences on paper.
    • A good topic interests the writer, appeals to the audience, and fits the purpose of the assignment.
    • Writers often choose a general topic first and then narrow the focus to a more specific topic.

    5.1: Apply Prewriting Models is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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