Pre-Writing: It’s the First Shovel in Building a Written “House!”

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Australia McGill could not keep her mind on work! She was a Customer Specialist at a local bank, and while she offered the smiles and correct information each customer needed, her thoughts were elsewhere, to a college Basic Accounting essay she handed in two days ago. It had been 12 years since Australia was last in school – high school – and she knew her writing skills were rusty; still, she paid attention in all her classes, did some brushing up on writing skills through the internet and a grammar book, and always asked her English professor for clarification when she was unsure of some writing guideline. After work she went directly to school, and when the essays were passed back, Australia received a B-. Although she felt this was an okay grade for this first essay in such a long time, she was puzzled by what her professor jotted: “Australia, the one major problem you have here is the paper is somewhat scattered; there doesn’t seem to be much unity to the subject ideas. Did you do any pre-writing?”  Pre-writing?  Australia was unsure of this, and asked her Accounting professor: the information she received was one of those light bulb moments. Indeed, many writers have not a clue as to what is meant by pre-writing strategies and how they can be the beautiful appetizer that can start an essay on its way to a  person’s enjoyable and tasty reading experience.

As Australia’s professor explained, pre-writing strategies help create and organize ideas for writing. It allows the writer to creatively and critically think about what they want to write. This results in not only a tighter, better flowing essay but also saves the writer time. A nice bonus to pre-writing is allowing the writer to possibly discover new ideas while tossing out ones that may now seem outdated or not as topical. When writers do not use pre-writing strategies – as Australia discovered – the end result can be ideas that don’t seem to flow, needless information included, and information that is not pertinent to the subject or is outmoded.

To remedy her lack of knowledge about pre-writing strategies Australia did what she did best: dive into to do as much sleuthing as possible about pre-writing strategies so she could master them, including writing a guide to keep her on track for all future writing assignments.

This is what Australia learned, and what became “Australia’s Guide to a Great Essay Through Pre-Writing Strategies:”

• Understand that beyond ideas already considered there are ideas/subjects yet to be discovered. Nearly everyone goes into a writing assignment with at least a smidgen of an idea or two of what will become a subject from which to generate a thesis statement. Yet with gazillions of websites on the internet, it can quickly become obvious that new ideas, new subjects, and new subsets of subjects are waiting to be found. This allows our mind to be open, a key component needed to make pre-writing strategies work.
• Make a list of pre-writing strategies;  go over each to determine what best fits one’s writing style/writing comfort zone. Australia was amazed at the variety of pre-writing strategies: Brainstorming, Listing, Clustering, Freewriting, Heart Mapping, Journaling, and more. She spent nearly two hours reading in-depth as many as she could find, making notes on what she thought would work best, what didn’t seem to be something to try, and thoughts on how some could be effective. These notes proved invaluable in saving time and arriving at the best pre-writing strategies.
• Use the outline as a pre-writing strategy that builds on the first selection of pre-writing strategies. Although the outline was listed as a pre-writing strategy, she felt it could serve her better once she had solid ideas from a few other pre-writing strategies (her favorites: Brainstorming and Clustering). Outlining allowed Australia to begin building the blueprint for her essay, making it easier to write it as she could see the order of paragraphs, build in the opening and closing paragraphs, make sure each supporting point was a direct connection to the thesis, and – when needed – where research could be added.
• Once pre-writing strategies have done their job, it’s time to draft. Australia had some pretty good knowledge about how to write, but having used pre-writing strategies it was as if the paper was writing itself! She was now confident she no longer would be told her writing was scattered, but rather felt comfortable her paragraphs flowed logically, the supporting points nicely supported the thesis, and her concluding paragraph did a good job in summarizing the essay, including a restatement of the thesis and a brief re-mention of the major supporting points.

Australia turned in her second essay, but this time using pre-writing strategies.  She looked in the mirror before leaving for school: “Australia McGill, you should be proud of the effort for this essay. I know it will definitely make you look like a college student who has not been out of school for 12 years!” This little self-motivational talk made Australia walk into her Accounting class with a positive attitude about her essay. As the professor returned the essays, when he came to Australia he smiled, and that told Australia she was right: those pre-writing strategies – and the time she put in to correctly use them – seems to have made a nice difference. When she looked at the grade another big smile broke out, this time on Australia’s face: an A!  Pre-writing strategies are a wonderful beginning resource for any writer, thought Australia, holding back from yelling it to the class 🙂