Jumat, 12 Desember 2014

The Benefits Of Prewriting

I know we’ve all been taught it. It’s one of the earliest tools we learn to help us write essays but it is often tossed aside as we bravely, but blindly dive into writing. Prewriting is all too often neglected as a waste of time, but it really is a useful tool that usually ends up saving the writer from having unorganized thoughts, confusing structure, and the dreaded writer’s block.

Back when I was a student, prewriting was always just a necessary step I was required to do. I would quickly draw up a few bubbles in a brainstorm and put it away only to ever been seen again in the case my teacher wanted proof of any sort of prewriting. I am sure a lot of students think the same way I did, however proper prewriting is extremely useful. When properly done, it provides a backbone for the paper to be written offering a logical and coherent train of thought for the paper to follow. Therefore a writer need not worry about any sort of issues with the structure of the paper and instead can concentrate his thoughts completely on the content of the paper.
 
I am sure there are dozens and dozens of different prewriting methods out there, but the two most widely used ones are brainstorming and outlining. Brainstorming is basically like a large cluster of thoughts, topics, or any relevant information that has to do with the essay. It starts with a middle node which acts as a starting point for major topics to be addressed in the paper, and branches out from there.

I have always felt that brainstorming is more of a precursor to even prewriting. It is a very effective tool for throwing out lots of ideas and details. I personally find myself using it when I am completely stuck on what to write. It kind of helps get the creative juices flowing and helps the writer think of topics to write and see what topics can chain together and what cannot. The thing I feel that brainstorming lacks is that it doesn’t really give you a solid foundation for how the essay will turn out. It does not give the writer a way to look at the brainstorm and know the exact structure of the essay.

In my personal experience outlines have been a much more effective tool in comparison to brainstorms. Outlines are basically like a basic breakdown of the major topics and points of your paper. It is really a nice prewriting method because you basically plan out an entire linear outline or bare-bones structure of your essay. The major benefit of this method over brainstorming is that it is a linear outline instead of randomly spread out clusters of topics that may or may not be used in writing the final product of your essay, you get a neatly organized list of topics and points to make in your essay.