Before you write, WRITE!

One of the most important steps in the writing process is also one of the most overlooked. I'm talking about PREWRITING, people.

Before committing yourself to sentences and paragraphs, get into the habit of simply playing with ideas for approaching your assignment. Prewriting allows you to generate content, develop ways to assert authorship (the expression of your own unique intellectual contributions!), and think about your assignment at a global, "big-picture" level.

A few ways to play:

LISTING
Create an unstructured list of ideas that come to mind as you think about your assignment. Just brainstorm. Let one idea lead to another. Jot down all your ideas, even those that seem half-baked or disorganized.

TALKING
Sometimes just chatting is a great way to get your ideas flowing. Talk about your assignment with someone who is willing to listen attentively, ask questions, and be encouraging. Talk to colleagues, friends, advisors, professors, etc., to get comfortable with the practice of thinking through your ideas out loud. After a good conversation, be sure to take a few minutes to write down the great ideas it yielded!

TURNING TO KEY TEXTS FOR INSPIRATION
Flip through key texts to get ideas for approaching your assignment. Do these texts contain problems, controversies, or unsolved puzzles that would be interesting to address? Closely review a portion of the text that you found particularly compelling, confusing, or complex. Consider the arguments in the text: how are they supported? Do you find the evidence convincing? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments? What counter arguments can you pose?

FREE WRITING
For five or ten minutes, simply write anything and everything you can think of in connection with an assignment. Anything goes. Just keep writing! After you’ve written for the allotted amount of time, go back through your writing with a highlighter or color pen/pencil and underline the best and/or most interesting ideas you generated.

CLUSTERING
Also known as webbing or mapping, clustering can help you move from a general idea to a nascent structure for your paper. Put the main idea in the middle of a piece of paper. Draw lines out from the center to possible subheadings. Draw lines out from those subheading notes out to subheadings at the next possible level.


Adapted from Hendengren, Beth Finch. 2004. A TA's Guide to Teaching Writing in All Disciplines. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. pp. 29-32.