Pre-writing strategies use writing to generate and clarify ideas. While many writers have traditionally created
outlines before beginning writing, there are other
possible pre-writing activities. Five useful strategies are
brainstorming
clustering,
free writing,
looping, and
asking the six journalists' questions
Brainstorming
Brainstorming, also called listing, is a process of generating a lot of information within a short time by building on the
association of previous terms you have mentioned.
- Jot down all the possible terms that emerge from
the general topic you are thinking about. This procedure works
especially
well if you work in a team. All team members can generate ideas,
with one member acting as scribe. Don't worry about editing
or throwing out what might not be a good idea. Simply write down
a lot of possibilities.
- Group the items that you have listed according to arrangements that make sense to you.
- Give each group a label. Now you have a topic with possible points of development.
- Write a sentence about the label you have given the group of ideas. Now you have a topic sentence or possibly a
thesis statement.
Clustering
Clustering is also called mind mapping or idea mapping. It is a strategy that allows you to explore
the relationships between ideas.
- Put the subject in the center of a page. Circle or underline it.
- As you think of other ideas, link the new ideas to the central circle with lines.
- As you think of ideas that relate to the new ideas, add to those in the same way.
The result will look like a web on your page. Locate clusters of interest to you,
and use the terms you attached to the key ideas as departure points for your paper.
Clustering is especially useful in determining the relationship between ideas.
You will be able to distinguish how the ideas fit together, especially where there is an
abundance of ideas. Clustering your ideas lets you see them visually in a different way,
so that you can more readily understand possible directions your paper may take.
Freewriting
Free-writing is a process of generating a lot of information by writing non-stop.
It allows you to focus on a specific topic, but forces you to write so quickly that
you are unable to edit any of your ideas.
- Free-write on the assignment or general topic for several 5-10
minutes non-stop. Force yourself to continue writing even if nothing specific comes to
mind. This free-writing will include many ideas; at this point, generating ideas is what
is important, not the grammar or the spelling.
- After you've finished free-writing, look back over what you have
written and highlight the most prominent and interesting ideas; then you can begin
all over again, with a tighter focus. You will narrow your topic and, in the process,
you will generate several relevant points about the topic.
Looping
Looping is a free-writing technique that allows you to increasingly focus your ideas in
trying to discover a writing topic. You loop one 5-10 minute free-writing after another, so
you have a sequence of free-writings, each more specific than the other. The same rules that
apply to free-writing apply to looping: write quickly, do not edit, and do not stop.
Free-write on an assignment for 5-10 minutes. Then, read through your free-writing,
looking for interesting topics, ideas, phrases, or sentences. Circle those you find interesting.
A variation on looping is to have a classmate circle ideas in your free-writing that interests him or her.
Then free-write again for 5-10 minutes on one of the circled topics. You should end up with a more
specific free-writing about a particular topic.
Loop your free-writing again, circling another interesting topic, idea, phrase, or sentence.
When you have finished four or five rounds of looping, you will begin to have specific information
that indicates what you are thinking about a particular topic. You may even have the basis for a
tentative thesis or an improved idea for an approach to your assignment when you have finished.
The Journalists' Questions
Journalists traditionally ask six questions when they are writing assignments, 5 W's and 1 H:
Who?,
What?,
Where?,
When?,
Why?,
How? You can use these questions to
explore the topic you are writing about for an assignment. A key to using the journalists'
questions is to make them flexible enough to account for the specific details of your topic.
For instance, if your topic is the rise and fall of the Puget Sound tides and its effect on salmon
spawning, you may have very little to say about
Who? if your focus doesn't account for human
involvement. On the other hand, some topics may be heavy on the
Who?, especially if human
involvement is a crucial part of the topic. Possible generic questions you can ask using the
six journalists' questions follow:
Who?:
Who are the participants? Who is affected? Who are the primary actors? Who are the secondary actors?
What?:
What is the topic? What is the significance of the topic? What is the basic problem? What are the issues?
Where?:
Where does the activity take place? Where does the problem or issue have its source?
At what place is the cause or effect of the problem most visible?
When?:
When is the issue most apparent? (past? present? future?)
When did the issue or problem develop? What historical forces helped shape the problem or issue
and at what point in time will the problem or issue culminate in a crisis? When is action needed
to address the issue or problem?
Why?:
Why did the issue or problem arise? Why is it (your topic) an issue
or problem at all? Why did the issue or problem develop in the way that it did?
How?:
How is the issue or problem significant? How can it be addressed?
How does it affect the participants? How can the issue or problem be resolved?
The journalists' questions are a powerful way to develop a great deal of information about a
topic very quickly. Learning to ask the appropriate questions about a topic takes practice, however.
At times during writing an assignment, you may wish to go back and ask the journalists' questions again
to clarify important points that may be getting lost in your planning and drafting.
----------------------------------------------------- Talk Soon. Take Part Idea Team
