Best Prewriting Strategies

Different people have different approaches for preparing an essay on a specific topic. Some of them act like “Hippies” travelers who have no exact plan of their destination. Similar to them, authors do not know what they are going to write and how they are going to organize all their ideas. There is another type of travelers who resembles a mother who knows every detail of the planned route.

Authors who also make a clear plan of essay writing help exist, and they have another approach for crafting an essay. People who start writing content without any plan are like those “Hippies” who jump into the process without any preparation. As a result, they can end up with a poor-quality paper as well as waste a lot of time for doing it. If you are not eager to risk your reputation and dream about getting A+, then find out what prewriting strategies exist and how they can make your life easier. 

What Strategy to Choose?

Let’s avoid long, complicated explanations and clear everything at once. A prewriting strategy is all preparation before embarking on crafting content. Actually, it starts at the moment when you read an assignment. A prewriting strategy includes all thoughts and notes you put on napkins, outlines, and research. Of course, such preparation takes time, but after all, it is worth it. 

Backing to the comparison with “Hippie” travelers whose journey is full of excitement and freedom, any experienced traveler will say that it is not the best way to travel at all. Without good preparation, you risk realizing at the very end of your trip all those opportunities and great places that you missed just because you didn’t know about them. Crafting the essay without a prewriting strategy may have the same result. After finishing the paper, you may look back and realize that you have missed something crucial.

The idea of a prewriting strategy is to get proper direction and create content in a manageable way. Thanks to the preparation, you will clearly understand what style and form your essay will have. After all, following a prewriting strategy frees you from the stress that you may experience when it is time to start crafting a necessary paper. 

There is no strong convenience to be like mum-traveler while writing an essay. The main goal is to find the most suitable strategy and move in the proper direction. As a result, you can get the content that you will be proud of. Mind that what works for one person doesn’t work for another one. You need to find your own successful route and move towards the final aim. Below, you can find the list of the most wide-spread prewriting approaches. 

Listing or Brainstorming

Perhaps you have a lot of ideas, thoughts, and questions that are related to the topic of the essay. Brainstorming can help you extract main ideas and understand which of them are worth focusing on. Take a blank piece of paper and start writing down everything that comes to your mind. This can be an idea, a prompt, or even a word/phrase related to your topic. When you finish, look at the list once again and decide which ideas grab your attention more. Which ones stand out to you and are worth expanding? Also, you can arrange all the written stuff into groups and label them. This will help you keep all points interesting and always close at hand. 

Freewriting

This strategy goes far away from brainstorming. It encourages you to write down the whole sentences instead of just words or phrases. Take a blank sheet of paper and keep writing for 10 minutes. Your task is to write all sentences that are related to the topic. Just do not stop. If you have not any new ideas, try to rewrite previous sentences. Do not take care about grammar or spelling mistakes. Write down whatever that comes to your mind. You are not going to show this piece of paper to your professor. It is just another way to find central and essential sentences for your essay. 

Clustering or Mapping 

If you are one of those people who learn things better if you see them visually, then this strategy will appeal to you for sure. You can draw a picture to your essay with a circle on the center of a sheet. Write down different words and ideas prompt that are related to the subject and join them to the circle with lines. The more words you put, the bigger picture you have. When you have no ideas to mention, look back and analyze the map. Use it properly to come up with the best possible result. 

Outlining

When you feel you have great prompts for your essay writer, you can move on and start crafting a skeleton that is known as an outline. It will assist you in arranging all data in a proper structure suitable for the paper. Right at this step, you can think about the thesis statement, introduction, and other main parts of the essay.

Journalist’s Questions

You can use the journalist’s questions to make sure you have prepared all the necessary information. They are:

• How?
• Why?
• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?

Ask yourself the following questions, and you’ll see how easily the necessary ideas will appear in your head. 

Critical Reading 

Critical reading is the last writing strategy that you can use for creating awesome content. Even when your thesis is developed, it is essential to go on critical reading while researching the topic. Do not avoid reading and putting down all useful notes. They may become of great use later, not obligatory at the very beginning. 

Wrapping-up

Now knowing all prewriting strategies for essay, look back the list once again. Does any of them stand out for you? Maybe there are some which correspond to your needs more than others? In the long run, you will surely find the writing routine that will suit you best of all. Try to be flexible as these strategies may vary from one type of essay to another. Some content will require mapping, while another freewriting.

Soon you will quickly identify the best writing strategy and learn how to apply it effectively. Remember that practice is especially necessary if you are at the beginning of your writing route. With a clear strategy, you will not lose your thoughts and will not miss significant details. Being a “Hippie” while writing an essay may not be the best idea if you want to come up with excellent content and get A+.